UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. j 



ON 



A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE 



£>t. Ambrose ; 



(FROM WHOM THE TRACT .IS DERIVED.) 



BY ALBANY J. CHRISTIE, M.A., 

FELLOW OF ORIEL COLL., OXFORD. 



JOHN 



OXFORD: 
HENRY PARKER. 

MDCCCXLIII. 




oxford : 

PRJjSTED BY I. SHRIMPTON. 



IN HONOREM 
BEATISSI1VLE ET GLORIOSISSIM^E 
SEMPERQUE VIRGINIS 

MARINE 

COLLEGII ORIELENSIS APUD OXONIENSES 

PATRONS 
ISTUM LIBELLUM 

IN LUCEM PROFERO 

A. J. C. 



SAP. 4. 



O quam pulchra est casta generatio cum claritate ! immortalis 
enim est memoria illius: quoniam apud Deum nota est et aptid 
homines. 



%iiz of S&t ^mferose. 



The following Tract is derived from a work written 
by St. Ambrose, a Saint particularly distinguished for 
his advocacy of the exalted condition of life of which 
it treats, and honoured by the Anglican Church on 
the 4th of April, by the rest of the Western Church 
on the 7th of December. He was born about the 
year 340 after the Incarnation, at which time the 
Church had emerged from the flood of heathen per- 
secution which assailed her infancy, and had lately 
determined at the Council of Nicsea, against the 
Arian heresy, the Catholic faith touching the Divinity 
of the Second Person in the adorable Trinity. Peace, 
however, was not yet to be the lot of the Church ; 
court favour emboldened the maintainers of the Arian 
irreligion, and the Arian persecution of the faithful 
succeeded to the Pagan. The period of St. Ambrose's 
boyhood and youth witnessed the sufferings of the 
true believers, and when he was first called to act as 
an ecclesiastic he found the contest against the ad- 
herents of the God- denying heresy still unended, 
though on the death a of the Arian Emperor Valens, 

a A.D. 378. 



•o 



VI 



2tfe of 



the Church was soon delivered by her Lord from the 
most implacable of her persecutors. The struggle 
was ceasing to be one between cruel persecution on 
the one side, and patient endurance on the other ; 
strength was gradually added to the Church ; things 
were so disposed by God that the powers of the world 
began to enlist on her side, and the impiety of Arius 
was baffled and confuted by the writings and the ex- 
amples of her faithful teachers. 

Our Saint was the third and last child of Ambrosius, 
Prefect of the Gauls b . His birth-place is uncertain, 
but it was probably Treves, Aries, or Lyons. The 
principal events of his life are recorded by Paulinus, 
his deacon and secretary, and the Church is grateful 
that as her Lord put it into the heart of Sulpicius 
Severus to record the life of his master St. Martin, and 
of Possidius to write that of his friend St. Augustine, 
so too the miraculous manifestations of that living 
Spirit which ever dwells within the Church, as dis- 
played through St. Ambrose, rest not on the less cer- 
tain testimony of writers distant in place or time, but 
on the authority of one who was his constant com- 
panion and minister . His own Epistles too supply 
us with some of the most important events of his life, 
particularly (as we shall see hereafter) in the Divine 
interpositions which, during his struggles for the 

b i. e. of Gaul, England, Spain, and part of Africa (Mauritania 

Tingitana.) 

c The Life of St. Ambrose by Paulinus, and addressed by him to St. 
Augustine, may be found in the Appendix to the Benedictine edition of 
St. Ambrose, vol. ii. 



O 



c , ^ o 

SkU %in\hxo$t. vii 

faith against the Arian Empress Justina, supported 
and encouraged him. 

The father of St. Ambrose inferred the future elo- 
quence of his son from a swarm of bees settling on 
his mouth as he lay sleeping in his cradle, and passing 
in and out without hurting him ; nor was the childish 
simplicity with which he used to offer his hands to be 
kissed by his mother and sister, when he saw them 
kissing the hands of a Bishop, thought afterwards by 
pious minds to have been other than a presage of his 
future apostolic dignity. We know not how much of 
deep meaning lies in the simplest acts of those who 
in special manner are one with Him, whose every 
word and deed is a mine of precious ore — -though we 
know it not, or scarcely know, and even Angels know 
not fully. St. Ambrose was early deprived of his 
earthly father, and consigned to the care of his 
mother, who lived (after her husband's death) in 
widowhood at Rome, and to his sister St. Marcellina, 
who was considerably older than himself, and had 
already received the veil from Pope Liberius. And 
blessed indeed was St. Marcellina in the education of 
her brother ; for if Holy Mary was blessed, the Virgin 
of Virgins, the fruit of whose womb was the Vine that 
filled the earth, those virgins too in their degree are 
blessed who have spiritually borne the fruitful olive- 
branches round about the table of the Lord. From 
his sister holy Ambrose first learned the beauty of 
virgin purity, and conceived that ardent love for it 
which pervades his works and all his teaching. 

c- o 



o o 

viii Stfe of 

Blessed was St. Marcellina in training her brother in 
the service of her Lord, and praised be He who has 
so often made women in their retirement the instruc- 
tors of Saints, whose part w T as afterwards openly to 
withstand the enemies of the truth. To Lois and 
Eunice we owe (under His blessing) the saintly 
knowledge of St. Timothy ; to the prayers and tears 
of St. Monnica, the conversion of St. Augustine ; and 
to the mother and sister of St. Basil, his patient en- 
durance of a daily martyrdom in earnestly contending 
for the Nicene faith. Nor w-ere the intellectual studies 
of Ambrose at Rome neglected, and the knowledge of 
Greek which he then acquired proved afterwards of 
the utmost use to him in the composition of many of 
his works. 

When old enough, Ambrose w^ent to Milan with 
his brother St. Satyrus, to study at the bar. It was 
not long before both attracted the notice of Probus, 
governor d of Italy ; he called them into his council, 
and soon after assigned to our Saint the government 
of the province e of w r hich Milan was the capital ; the 
words with which he dismissed him to his charge 
proved prophetic — " Go," said he, " and act, not as 
Judge but as Bishop." The Bishop of Milan f , who 
held the Arian impiety, died this year, and a tumult 
was apprehended in the choice of his successor. The 
Bishops therefore w r ho assembled for the consecration 

d Praetorian Praefect. 

e viz. JEmilia and Liguria. Ambrose received this appointment A.D. 374. 
f This Arian was named Auxentius, and followed the Saint Dionysius, 
A.D. 354. 

6 • O 



o o 

j£t Snvkrose. ix 

begged Valentinian, who was in Gaul, to nominate 
him, but the Emperor dreaded the responsibility of 
appointing an officer who was to be in very deed a 
representative of Christ even as His Apostles were, 
and declined. The people therefore were called on 
to elect their Bishop, and, as was expected, an uproar 
ensued in the Cathedral. Ambrose, as the civil magis- 
trate, repaired to the spot and endeavoured by an 
oration to still it. While he was speaking, a child's 
voice was heard to cry out, "Ambrose — Bishop," 
and the whole multitude, heretics as well as Catholics, 
elected him by acclamation. Thus is it that the 
Divine counsels are oft-times brought about by means 
which, to the world or the philosopher, look like 
chance or superstition ; so true it is that a spiritual 
kingdom, such as holy Church is, cannot be under- 
stood by human wisdom ; the circumstances of her 
existence are, no less than the Cross which she 
preaches, foolishness — to them that perish; but by 
them whose eyes are opened to see the heavenly 
powers enlisted on her side, the mysterious under- 
workings of God's Providence are contemplated with 
thankful adoration. 

Such as Ambrose became, such was he already,, 
though yet unwashed in the laver of regeneration ; 
the character which was capable of development into 
the Christian Saint, already existed in its natural form, 
in the yet unbaptized catechumen. Since therefore 
the greatest saints are ever the most humble, it is no 
wonder that he had recourse to every expedient to shun 

o o 



x mu of 

the weight of the responsibility thrust upon him. He 
hastily quitted the assembly, and, mounting his tri- 
bunal, exhibited severity in his civil judgments and 
used the strangest means to make the people think 
him unworthy of the Episcopate. All would not do ; 
the only effect produced was a general cry, Thy sin be 
upon us, from all the people ; he fled from the city, 
and was not brought back till the Emperor made it 
criminal for any person to conceal him. Then at 
length he was obliged to submit, and after being bap- 
tized and fulfilling the ecclesiastical offices s, he was 
on the eighth day, being now above thirty years of age, 
ordained. He wished 11 indeed the sacramental rite 
deferred, in obedience to the Apostle's rule 1 that a 
Bishop shall not be a novice, but where Divine grace k 
had so signally ordered his elevation, the Church was 
but following the guidance of that Holy Spirit who 
had inspired St. Paul, in making allowance 1 for such 
extraordinary cases, and his objections were overruled. 

The promotion of St. Ambrose was approved by 
the Bishops of the whole Church m , and there is still 
extant the letter which St. Basil addressed to him 11 
on the occasion, in which he exhorts St. Ambrose, 
" now translated to the chair of the Apostles, to fight 
the good fight and heal the sicknesses of the people, 
wherever infected with the Arian madness/ 9 This 
letter was accompanied by the reliques of St. Diony- 
sius, the last Catholic Bishop of Milan, who had been 

s Paulin. Vit. § 9. h Epist. 63. § 65. i 1 Tim. iii. 6. 

t Theodor. Hist. Eccl. 4. 6. 1 Canon. Apostol. lxxx. 

™ Ep. 63. § 65. n Ep. 55. al. 197. vol. iii. p. 287. ed. Bened. 



a 



o 



Sbt Qmbtoge. xi 

dethroned by the Arians and died an exile in Cap- 
padocia the same year that our Saint was sent by Pro- 
bus to his government with the prophetic words above 
recorded ; as though the Arian, Auxentius, who fol- 
lowed St. Dionysius, were a mere cypher in the succes- 
sion of the see of Milan, and St. Ambrose was in the 
Divine counsels already regarded as the rightful Bishop. 

St. Ambrose now distributed his money to the 
poor and gave his lands to the Church, making his 
sister tenant for life ; and he made over to his 
brother, St. Satyrus, who constantly lived with him 
at Milan, the sole management of his worldly affairs p. 
Feeling himself unequal to his office in point of know- 
ledge he invited from Rome a priest named St. 
Simplician 1 ", who lived to succeed him. So vigorously 
did he resist the Arian irreligion that in a few years 8 
it only existed among some of the Gothic soldiers and 
in the royal family*. 

He used to preach every Sunday u ; he slept little, and 
such was his abstinence, that he fasted daily, and dined 
only on the Sabbath x , (i.e. Saturday,) the Lord's Day, 
and the festivals of the most noted Martyrs He 

Paulin. § 38. p De Excessu Satyri. § 20. q De Officiis. I. § 4. 
r Ep. 65; S. August. Confess, vi. 3. viii. 2. s By A.D. 385. 

1 Ep. 20. § 12. 11 S. Aug. Confess, vi. 3, 13. * Paulin. § 38. 

y " If any clerk be found fasting on the Lord's Day or any Sabbath, 
except the one only, let him be deposed ; if any layman, let him be ex- 
communicated." Canon. Apostol. 65 (al. 56). The one Sabbath excepted 
is the Holy Sabbath or Easter-Eve. This Canon was directed against the 
heretics who considered the creation the work of an evil god, and so 
commemorated its completion by fasting. It is therefore obviously un- 
reasonable to charge the Western Church with contempt of the Apostolic 
Canons in making Saturday a day of abstinence, for the occasion of the 
Canon never existed to such a degree in the West as in the East, and has 
practically ceased altogether. The rule at Milan, in this respect, was an 
exception to the general custom in the West; St. Ambrose, however, 



o o 

xii Stfe of 

offered the Holy Sacrifice every day 2 . In his sermons 
he dwelt largely on the blessedness of Holy Virginity, 
and published three books a on the subject, (begun on 
the festival of St. Agnes) from one of which the fol- 
lowing Tract is derived. And as he thus exhibited 
his care for those who aspired to the hundred-fold, he 
soon displayed the like solicitude for them whose 
reward is sixty -fold, by issuing a work on Widows, 
whom he strongly dissuaded from second marriage b . 
The Church was his peculiar care, but his active 
spirit passed beyond her pale, and on one occasion 
we find the holy Bishop representing to the Emperor 
certain abuses in the Courts of Law, and on the 
other hand the pious Emperor using his authority 
to remedy the evil c . No less anxiously did he guard 
the administration of justice by Ecclesiastics, in cases 
referred to them ; and sharply he rebuked the Bishop 
Syagrius for treating in unbecoming manner a 
calumniated maiden d . 

Gratian, who succeeded 6 his father Valentinian I., 
supported St. Ambrose against Arianism, and before 
marching to aid his uncle Valens, against the Goths, 
begged St. Ambrose to write a work on the Divinity 

when at Rome, or in any other place where it was usual to fast on the 
Sabbath, conformed to the custom of the place (St. Aug. Ep. 36.) al. 86. 
ad Casul. 

1 Ep. 20. § 15. 

a Opp. S. Ambr. torn. ii. p. 145. 213. ed. Bened. The Benedictine 
Editors separate these three books, as it would seem, wrongly. They 
were written A.D. 377. 

b Tom. ii. p. 185. A.D. 377. 

c See Theodor. Hist. Eccl. 4. 6. The Emperor was Valentinian I., who 
died A.D. 375. 

d A.D. 380. Vid. Ep. 5. e Nov. 17, A.D. 375. 

O O 



O- ( 

j&t ^mbroge. xiii 

of the Second Person in the Blessed Trinity, which he 
did in his two books On the Faith 1 . Before Gratian 
could reach Valens the latter perished at the battle of 
Hadrianople (A.D. 378), and St. Ambrose devoted the 
treasure and vessels of the Church to the ransom of 
captives, who were exposed for sale in numbers in 
consequence of these wars&. 

St. Satyrus, St. Ambrose's brother, died in this year 
or the following, at Milan. St. Ambrose pronounced 
over him two funeral orations which are still extant h ; 
and Dongalus, a writer in the ninth century, gives 
his epitaph, and ascribes it to St. Ambrose 1 . Gratian 
passed through Milan after declaring Theodosius, 
Augustus, at Sirmium (Jan. 19, A.D. 379), and at his 
request our Saint added three more books On the 
Faith, to his former two, and also gave promise of a 
work On the Holy Ghost, which he completed in three 
books k . In A.D. 380, St. Ambrose went even out of 
his jurisdiction to help the Church at Sirmium, which 
was threatened with the appointment of an Arian 
Bishop through the influence of Justina, the widow 
of Valentinian I., and the mother of Gratian and 
Valentinian the younger : his undertaking was blessed 

f A.D. 377-8. torn. ii. p. 443. About this same time lie wrote Ep. 2. to 
Constantius, Bp. of Imola, putting him on his guard against the Arians 
who had been driven into his diocese by the Gothic invasion. 

s De Offic. ii. 15, 28. 

h 1. De Excessu Satyri; 2. De Fide Resurrectionis, vol. ii. p. 1113. 
5 Biblioth. Maxima Patrum, vol. xiv. p. 223. 

k A.D. 381. (ineunt.) vol. ii. p. 599. In this last work he made great use 
of St. Basil's book on the same subject, and of Didymus of Alexandria (S. 
Hier. Didym. Praef. torn. iv. p. 493). Our Saint at this time used his in- 
fluence with Gratian to procure two laws favourable to the Church (Cod. 
Theodos. xvi. tit. 5. 5. xv. tit. 7. 4.) 



r : 

xiv %iU of 

by the ordination of Aneminius, but Justina from that 
day became his bitterest enemy 1 . 

In A.D. 381, a Council was held at Aquileia, on an 
application made to Gratian three years before by two 
Arian Bishops, who wished to have their cause tried 
by an (Ecumenical Council. The Council of Niceea 
(A.D. 325), had already defined the Faith, and St. 
Ambrose represented the unreasonableness of dis- 
turbing the whole Church for two obscure Bishops, 
who resisted its irreversible decrees 111 . The heretics 
therefore appeared before a Council of thirty-two or 
thirty-three Bishops, and their condemnation of the 
Epistle of Arias to St, Alexander was made the test 
of their orthodoxy 11 ; the test convicted them, and 
they were deposed . The Western Bishops now 
desired a General Council at Rome, to arrange the 
affairs of the Church . This was not effected, as the 
Eastern Bishops excused themselves °* ; however, we 
find St. Ambrose at a Council at Rome, A.D. 382 r , 
and while there he cured a woman of the palsy s , and 
was visited also in a sickness by St. Ascholius, the 
famous Bishop of Thessalonica*. 

1 Paulin. § 12. This same year, or the next, he rejected the petition 
of the Priscillianist heretics, who had been condemned at Saragoza (Oct. 
4, A.D. 380). The great Theodosius (Nov. 26) restored to the Catholics 
their Churches at Constantinople, and the next year the second (Ecu- 
menical council was held there. 

m Ep. 12. § 3. 10. § 2 ; Script. Imperat. in Gestis Concil. Aquil. § 4. 

n See the Epistle, ap. S. Epiph. adv. Haer. 69. § 7; and St. Athanas. 
de Synod. II. § 16. Oxford Translation 1842, p. 96. 

° Mansi Concilia, vol. iii. p. 599. p Ep. 12, 13, 14. 

i Theodoret. Hist. Eccl. v. 8, 9. * Soz. H. E. vii. 11. 8 Paulin. § 10. 

1 Ep. 15. § 10. Cases of St. Ambrose's practice of interceding for crimi- 
nals occur this year (Paulin. § 37. Sozom. Hist. Eccl. 7. 24. See Fieury's 
Eccl. Hist. Bk. 18. 28, and Bk. 20. 15 ; and Ep. 57. § 11. A.D. 392, and 
Ep. 62. A.D. 394. 

u d 



■o 



j&t. Ambrose. 



XV 



To the next year, A.D. 383, is referred his treatise 
On the Mystery of the Incarnation 11 , suggested by two 
Arian chamberlains of Gratian. He also presented 
the counter-remonstrance of the Christian senators to 
Gratian, when the Pagans petitioned the latter against 
the removal of the Altar of Victory from the Senate- 
housed 

On the death of Gratian at the hands of the usurper 
Maximus, (Aug. 25, A.D. 383,) Justina committed the 
affairs of her son, Valentinian II., (now twelve years 
old,) to St. Ambrose, w T ho went to Maximus, obtained 
peace y, and prevented his passing into Italy 2 . He 
remained through the winter with Maximus, but re- 
fused to communicate with him a . The next year, 
A.D. 384, St. Ambrose returned to Milan, where 
Valentinian held his court, and he frustrated the 
attempts of the Pagan Symmachus, to have the Altar 
of Victory restored 13 . This year Augustine came to 
Milan , where St. Monnica, his mother, found that 
St. Ambrose had abolished the much- abused feasts at 
the Martyrs' tombs d . 

Justina, A.D. 385, employed the peace which St. 
Ambrose had obtained for her, in persecuting him. 
She had procured the appointment of an Arian 
Bishop at Milan, named Auxentius, and she now 
(March) demanded of St. Ambrose a church called 
the Portian, for her irreligious worship. When this 

u De Incarnationis Sacramento, vol. ii. p. 703. s Ep. 17. § 10. 
y Ruffin. Hist. Eccl. xi. 15. z Ep. 20 and 24. 

a Tillemont, Hist. Eccl. torn. x. note 20 on St. Ambrose. 
b Symmach. Ep. x. 54; S. Ambr. Ep. 17 and 18. 



e Confess, v. 13. 



d Confess, vi. 2. 



c — 

xvi 



mu of 



•o 



was refused e , various means were resorted to for 
removing the holy Bishop f . They proved unsuc- 
cessful : and on April 4, the Friday before Palm 
Sunday, a new demand was made for the larger 
church of the Holy Apostles ; and on Saturday the 
Portian was again required. The Saint was inflexible. 
On Palm Sunday, as he was instructing the candi- 
dates s for Baptism, he was told that the Portian was 
seized in the Emperor's name h . He proceeded how- 
ever to offer mass 1 , and while making the oblation 
was told that an Arian priest was in the hands of the 
populace ; on which he sent some of his clergy to 
rescue him. The wealthy tradesmen were fined, and 
many thrown into prison, even in Holy Week k . St. 
Ambrose himself went from the Church home, to 
give an opportunity to the civil power of arresting 
him. The attempt on the Portian was given up ; the 
other Basilica was seized ; but St. Ambrose threatened 
the soldiers with excommunication, and the imperial 
hangings 1 , indicative of confiscation, were removed. 
Justina closed the year in procuring a law in favour 
of the Arians m , but Benevolus, the secretary of state, 
a Catholic, resigned his office rather than draw it up n . 
It was promulgated Jan. 21, 386. Another attempt 
was made to subdue the holy Bishop. He was called 
on to dispute with Auxentius, (who had been elected 

e Ep.20. § 1. f Paulin. § 12. 

k Competentes, the approved candidates. h Ep. 20. 2 — 4. 

s Sic, § 4. p. 853. k Cod. Theod. 9. tit. 38. 1. 8. 

l Cortina. m Cod. Theod. 16. tit. 1. 4. 

n Ruffin. Hist. Eccl. xi. 16. Soz. Hist. Eccl. vii. 13. Prsefat. S. 
Gaudent. 



o 



XVll 



by his party to succeed his name- sake, as Arian 
Bishop of Milan), in the Emperor's consistory, or to 
quit the city. To do the former would be to make 
laymen judges of holy things ; to do the latter volun- 
tarily would have been to betray his trust ; and he 
declined both . He was shut up in the quadrangle 
of the sacred enclosure, and while the soldiers 
allowed whosoever would to enter, none were allowed 
to come out. It was now that St. Ambrose intro- 
duced the responsorial mode of chaunting, which 
continues to this day at Milan, and, modified by 
Pope St. Gregory, generally in the Western Church p. 
He refers to it in a sermon delivered on Palm 
Sunday against Auxentius * in the Portian Basilica. 
Even Maximus remonstrated with Valentinian r ; 
but, as might be expected, when things seemed 
at the worst, the Divine Presence in the Church 
was manifested in the defence of truth against 
Arian persecution. The reliques of St. Gervasius 
and St. Protasius were revealed in a dream s to St. 
Ambrose on June lSth^ and as they were on the way 
to be deposited beneath the altar of the church (now 
called) of St. Ambrose the Greater, Severus, a blind 
man, well known in Milan, was brought to them, 
touched them, and received his sight u . This termi- 
nated the persecution. The comment of St. Ambrose 

° Ep. 21. p Paul. Vit. § 13. q Sermo de Basilicis tradendis. 
r Thdt. Hist. 5. 14. Mansi's Concilia, iii. p. 673. 



u See St. Augustine as just quoted, and Serm. de Divers. 286 [39] 5. 
St. Ambros. Ep. 22. Paulin. § 14, 15. Church of the Fathers, ch. 3, and 
Introductory Essay to TransL of Fleury's Eccl. Hist. Oxf. 1842, p. 
clxxxv. 



8 S. Augustin. Confess. 9. 7. De Civit. 22. 8. 



1 Ep. 22. 12. 



O 



b 



J 



xviii 2£tfe of 

on St. Luke was completed this year, and he wrote x 
to the Bishops of iEmilia on fixing the time of Easter. 

In A.D. 387, St. Ambrose baptized St. Augustine ; 
but the sermon ascribed to him on the occasion is 
spurious. St. Augustine speaks of a monastery near 
Milan under the special care of St. Ambrose y. After 
Easter, St. Ambrose went again on an embassy to 
Maximus to divert him from Italy 2 , but Justina was 
doomed to reap the bitter fruits of her irreligion ; the 
embassy failed. Maximus marched to surprise Valen- 
tinian at Milan, but he escaped to Theodosius a with 
his mother b . In the following year, Theodosius 
defeated Maximus, and at Milan received an epistle 
from St. Ambrose, who was at Aquileia, protesting 
against his command to the Bishop of Callinicus in 
the East, to rebuild a synagogue, which had been 
burnt by the Christians ; and on his return to Milan, 
St. Ambrose refused to offer the sacrifice till Theo- 
dosius had pledged himself to stop the proceeding d . 
This year St. Ambrose's influence was a third time 
exerted against the Pagans, and he prevented Theo- 
dosius from paying any attention to the deputation 
sent by them to obtain the restoration of the Altar of 
Victory e . In A.D. 390, St. Ambrose condemned in a 
Council at Milan the Ithacians for persecuting to the 
death the Priscillianist heretics f , as well as Jovinian, 



x Epist. 23. y Confess, viii. 6. 

z De Ob. Valent. § 28. Ep. 24. Paulin. § 19. a Zosimus, iv. 42. 

b Ruff, xi. 16. To this year are referred Epist. 25, 26, on the 
Punishment of Death. c Epist. 40. d Epist. 41. § 1. 

e Epist. 57. f Chron. Prosper. A.D. 389. 



-J 



o o 

jet, %Lmbxo$c* xix 

who irreligiously asserted that the blessed Mother of 
God ceased to be a virgin after the Nativity s. The 
same year is celebrated for the penance ofTheodosius. In 
a tumult at Thessalonica, the commander of his forces, 
Botheric, was killed. At first the indignation of Theo- 
dosius (now at Milan) was calmed by St. Ambrose and 
the other Bishops, but afterwards, at the instigation 
of his ministers, during some absence from Milan, he 
ordered a general massacre, and seven thousand per- 
sons perished in three hours 11 . St. Ambrose wrote to 
the Emperor 1 and excommunicated him k . For eight 
months the suspension lasted ; till at last, at Christmas, 
the pious Emperor submitted to the Divine authority 
in the holy Bishop, and did public penance, stripped 
of his kingly robes 1 , prostrate on the pavement 111 which 
he watered with his tears, and uttering the words of 
the 119th Psalm, My soul cleaveth unto the dust, 
quicken Thou me according to Thy word. After 
making his oblation, he, according to the Eastern 
custom, was remaining within the sanctuary, when 
St. Ambrose sent his Archdeacon to bid him retire to 
the rest of the laity 11 . This gave occasion to Theodo- 
sius to say on a subsequent occasion, when Nectarius 
at Constantinople asked him why he left the sanctuary : 
" No Bishop do I know save Ambrose." Theo- 

e Ep. 42, § 13; Mansi Concilia, iii. p. 667. B. St. Ambrose vindi- 
cates the perpetual virginity of St. Mary against Bonosus in his De In- 
stitutions Virginis, a work made from a sermon delivered (A.D. 391 — 
400) on the Profession of Ambrosia. 

h Soz. vii. 25; Ruff. xi. 18; Thdt. v. 17; St. August. De Civit. Dei, 
26 ; Paulin. § 24. i Epist. 51. * Paulin. § 24. 

i De Obit. Theod. § 34. m Soz. vii. 25. » Thdt. 5. 18. 



O o 

xx Stfc of 

dosius, besides submitting to the penance, in satisfac- 
tion for his crime, confirmed the law of Gratian, 
which deferred the execution of a judicial sentence 
for thirty days . On the loth of May, A.D. 392, 
the young Valentinian was killed at Vienne by his 
Gothic general ArbogastesP : his remains were brought 
.to Milan, and St. Ambrose pronounced his funeral 
oration ' ; in which he promised to offer the sacrifice 
for the two brothers as long as he lived r . Arbogastes 
made Eugenius Emperor, and when the latter came 
to Milan, our holy Bishop retired to Bologna, and 
addressed to him an expostulation s . The Milanese 
clergy also refused Eugenius' s offerings. At Bologna, 
A.D. 393, St. Ambrose was present at the translation 
of the reliques of St.Vitalis and St. Agricola t : then 
at Florence he dedicated a church with the reliques 
of the former 11 . This church was built by a devout 
widow, Juliana, with reference to whose virgin 
daughter he preached at the dedication his Exhorta- 
tion to Virginity*. Here he raised a child to life?, 
and wrote a book for his instruction 2 . When Eugenius 
left Milan, St. Ambrose returned, and awaited the 
victory of Theodosius, whose letter of thanks there- 
upon he offered on the altar a . On Jan. 17, A.D. 395, 

° Cod. Theodos. ix. tit. 40. 13. Ruffin. Hist. Eccl. xi. 18. At 
this time, probably, his wide-spread fame brought two noble Persians 
into Italy, whose only object was to see him and the Praefect Probus. 
Paulin. § 25 ; Fleury, Eccl. Hist. Book 19. 22. The letter of St. Ambrose 
(Epist. 56) on the subject of the Antiochene schism and the Council of 
Capua (A.D. 391) is referred to A.D. 392. 
p S. Epiph. de Ponderibus, § 28 [20.] 

i De Obitu Valentiniani, vol. ii. p. 1173. r § 56. 8 Ep. 57. 

1 Paulin. § 29. n Exhort. Virginitatis, § 1. x Vol. ii. p. 277. 

y Paulin. § 28. z This work is not extant. a A.D. 394. 

O O 



o 



o 



XXI 



Theodosius died ; and on the fortieth dav b St. Am- 
brose made his funeral oration . He also sent, 
this year, the reliques of St. Nazarius and Celsus to 
St. Paulinus of Nola d . In A.D. 396, Stilicho, the 
guardian of the young princes, did penance for a 
breach of sanctuary e ; and Fritigil, queen of the 
Marcomanni, was converted through St. Ambrose, 
whose Catechism of the Faith, sent to her on this 
occasion, is unhappily lost f . Our holy Saint, mighty 
in words and deeds, fell asleep in Christ on April 4th, 
397, on which day he is commemorated by the 
Anglican Church. He was entreated to pray for a 
continuance of life£, but was wholly resigned, and 
approved of St. Simplicianus (his former instructor) 
as his successor. A few days before his departure, 
Paulinus, who was writing from his dictation a com- 
ment on the 44th Psalm, saw a globe of fire encircle 
his head, and enter gently at his mouth. From that 
time he ceased to dictate, and the comment remains 
imperfect. Wrapt in prayer from before vespers on 
Good Friday till after midnight, his arms stretched 
in the form of a Cross, he received the Viaticum from 
St. Honoratus, and departed to his peace h . The 
Basilica Ambrosiana received his reliques, and the 
holy Bishop did not desert the Church even when his 
earthly sojourn was over 1 . 

b Constit. Apost. 8. 42. «= De Obitu Theodosii, torn. ii. p. 1197. 

d Natal. 9. v. 436. p. 638. Fol. Veron. 1736. e p au lin. § 34. 

f A valuable epistle, on occasion of the disputes at Vercellae about 
the appointment of a Bishop, was written this year (Ep. 63) by St. Am- 
brose, who ordained for that see St. Honoratus. 

s Paulin. § 44. b Paulin. § 46, 47. Pagi. an. 397. S 6. 

i Paulin. § 48—52. 



O 



o 



•o 



XXII 



2tfe of j&t. &mtiro$*- 



[Most of St. Ambrose's writings have been mentioned already chrono- 
logically. In his Hexaemeron (torn. i. p. 1) A.D. 387-9, he mainly 
followed Origen, St. Hippolytus, and St. Basil. The Appendix (A.D. 
388) to it is addressed to Horontianus. His De Officiis (the idea 
of which he had from Cicero) on the duties of Ecclesiastics, was written 
A.D. 3S6 (torn. ii. p. 1.) His De Jfysteriis (torn. ii. p. 325), on the 
Sacraments (c. 1) of Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist, may 
have been composed on St. Austin's baptism, A.D. 387. (The six books 
on the Sacraments (ibid. p. 349) are not his.) The date of his two 
books, On Penitence, against the Novatians, (ibid. p. 389,) is uncertain. 
The third Homily, De Ditersis, A.D. 395. His Seven Books on the 
Patriarchs, (Tillemont. Hist. Eccl. x. p. 291,) A.D. 387, and various 
works on the Psalms and Histories of the Old Testament, from A.D. 
376 — 396. There are several Hymns composed by him extant (torn. ii. 
p. 1219) which are still used in the offices of the Breviary. Most of the 
sermons ascribed to him are by St. Maximus of Turin. Ninety-one 
Epistles are extant. The Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles (called com- 
monly Ambrosiaster) was written by Hilary the Deacon (torn. ii. Append, 
p. 25). The Te Deum, ascribed to St. Ambrose, dates, it is supposed, 
from the sixth century. 

As to the editions of St. Ambrose, the first is by Maffellus Tenia, who 
died A.D. 1486. The Milanese edition followed A.D. 1490 ; then those 
of Basle, A.D. 1492—1567 ; the Parisian, A.D. 1529—1665; and the 
Roman, A.D. 1580 — 1587. The Benedictine is the latest, and though 
the best, is complained of (See Fabricius, Bibl. Latin. Yen. 1728, torn, 
ii. p. 315.) It is in two volumes, fol. Par. 1686 — 1690. The Benedic- 
tines (faultily) place the De Sacramentis among St. Ambrose's works. 
More recently the History of the Destruction of Jerusalem, usually given 
to Egesippus or Ex-Josippus, in five books, has been claimed for St. 
Ambrose. (Vid. Gallandi. Bibliotheca Patrum. torn. vii. Proleg. xxix. 
&c.) Gallandi has added three Hymns, not in the Benedictine edition. 
Ibid. p. 772. (e cod. Vatic, lxxxii.) Still more lately Angelo Mai 
(now Cardinal) has discovered St. Ambrose's Explanatio Symboli ad 
initiandos and Epistola de Fide ad B. Hieronymum. See torn. vii. p. 
158-9 (A.D. 1833) of his Scriptorum Veterum Nova Collectio; at the be- 
ginning of which volume is Patrum Doctrina de Verbi Incarnatione, in 
Greek, with several passages from St. Ambrose translated from the 
Latin.] 



O 



-o 



It may at first sight seem strange that any person 
should think of publishing a tract such as the present, 
the subject of which is more likely in these days to be 
made matter of ridicule than of serious thought and 
earnest practice. And this consideration is indeed a 
material one and not to be treated lightly, if we call 
to mind, that besides precepts of love, Scripture con- 
tains others of a character which to our age are less 
attractive, such as, Give not that which is holy unto the 
dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine. Perhaps 
even those who are most averse to that sacred re- 
serve, with which the truths of our holy faith should 
be treasured up, so as not to expose them wantonly 
to the scoffer and profane, may for once espouse the 
cause they disavow, and protest against an exhibition 
of the evangelic counsels such as the present. How- 
ever, the objections of these latter will in reality be 
grounded on no principle so worthy of consideration 
as that of reverence ; they have so lost themselves in 
the one doctrine of man's natural corruption, that 
their teaching practically treats solely of the conver- 
sion of the sinner (a phrase how sadly abused !) and 
it neglects the perfecting of the saints. And so it 
ever is ; the exclusive contemplation of one doctrine 
at once shuts out the vision of the rest, which are no 



xxiv preface* 

less essential, and also, destroying the due proportion 
of the several parts of the faith, distorts and perverts 
that one doctrine which is selected as the favourite. 
Now, Holy Virginity is not a duty incumbent upon 
all men, and yet St. Paul would have all men as he 
was because there is special honour to this grace, so 
great, that however well that man does who seeks 
the bonds of holy wedlock, which is indeed honourable 
in all, yet he who in this as in other points strives to 
follow the steps of his Virgin Master and for the 
kingdom of Heaven's sake makes himself an eunuch, 
as certainly doeth better. Holy Virginity then is not 
a duty but an evangelic counsel of perfection ; a 
special prerogative of those who would be perfect, 
like voluntary poverty, or perfect retirement from the 
society of our fellow-men ; a grace, like these, which 
men in general cannot attain, to which peradventure 
men in general ought not to aspire ; a grace, more- 
over, which makes its possessors a blessing to those 
around them, who are not called to the practice 
of the same perfection a . What wonder then if those 
who speak so little of duty and the Christian law, 
that Law of Faith which all must obey, and by 
obedience to which only, they as members of Christ's 
body, once justified in holy Baptism, can be finally 
justified in that day ; what wonder if they alto- 
gether disregard the higher graces, and because their 

a And in this respect these high spiritual graces are analogous to 
God's natural gifts ; e. g. all men cannot be physicians, yet it is true that 
those who are, are a blessing to the world. 



Preface* xxv 

principles do not reach them, speak of them as 
visionary and mock at them. 

But it is of her children that Wisdom is justified, 
and of these whose ears are open in docility to the 
voice of holy Church and dread the rude exposure of 
sacred things, there may be some, who will feel pain 
at the publication of this Tract. Their scruples are 
most worthy of consideration, and one would fain 
remove them ; and thus much at least (whether my 
reasons satisfy them or no) I trust they will believe, 
that I too have felt the difficulty and have not 
thoughtlessly or triflingly published the present tract. 

It is obvious to notice that there are not more to 
ridicule this exalted grace in these days than there 
were in the time of St. Ambrose. Now, though 
there is but little analogy between Ms publishing this 
treatise and its publication at a time when printing 
has made common what then required the labour of 
transcribers to supply to a few, yet the pulpit supplies 
a much closer analogy. Information which is now 
spread abroad by the press, was then circulated in a 
great degree by the numerous professors of rhetoric, 
who abounded in every town : the Church, which 
has ever adapted itself to the lawful expedients which 
in various ages have predominated, had also her 
teachers, analagous to the pagan orators ; true, the 
latter sat in the " seat of lies," and the Bishops in the 
Chair of Truth, still the means (in themselves good 
or indifferent) were the popular means of the day, 
and through them the struggles between the pro- 
U— — ^ 



o 

xxvi preface* 

fessors of Christianity and the heathen, between the 
professors of truth and of error in Christianity, that 
is, between the Catholic and the heretic, were carried 
on. Nor were the faithful alone admitted to these 
rhetorical exercises (or as we shall call them ser- 
mons), St. Augustine was still a Manichee when he 
hung upon the words of St. Ambrose, and at An- 
tioch the Pagans, deserted by their own philosophers, 
forsook the theatre and the race-course, when threat- 
ened with destruction by the offended Theodosius, to 
hear in the Church the consolations of St. Chry- 
sostom. 

Now we find that in his public instructions there 
was no topic upon which St. Ambrose dwelt more 
frequently than the loveliness of virgin purity. 
Neither did he desist, when it became plain that 
many were offended at these instructions ; there were 
mothers who forbade their daughters to hear his ex- 
hortations, and fathers who opposed him, but he per- 
severed, and the seed which he sowed at Milan bore 
fruit at Bologna and the surrounding cities, and has 
continued to bear fruit in after ages and in distant 
lands, in an abundant harvest of virgin souls. It may 
not be wrong now to attempt to extend his influence ; 
it is a solemn thought that the pains of departed 
heretics and writers of impurity may be constantly 
increased as the venom of their sentiments corrupts 
one victim after another ; may it not likewise be true 
that the bliss of saints receives continual accession 
by the communication of the blessed effects of their 

o o 



c , o 

■preface* xxvii 

exhortations to truth and purity ? If so, were it not 
a prize worth trying for, to increase the bliss of 
Ambrose ? Yes ! and we may in return win his 
prayers for us, and perhaps through them be made 
ourselves worthy of this high grace, which seems as 
yet so far beyond our reach. 

As there were some who profited by St. Ambrose's 
instructions then, some will be found even now by 
whom his words will be esteemed. We, in this age, 
may be unworthy to read or to translate treatises of 
the holy Fathers on the evangelic counsels, still if 
rightly undertaken, the work may be blessed both to 
reader and translator ; or, at least, we may be work- 
ing for another purer and more faithful age, which 
will receive with gladness the sentences of the Chris- 
tian saints. 

That the grace of Holy Virginity is a very great 
gift, no Christian who receives the testimony of Holy 
Scripture can doubt. Some are so highly favoured 
as to possess this gift from their mother's womb b , 
but those who are not so blest need not despair of 
being made worthy of it c ; for if there be an earnest 
mind, God is faithful, and will not suffer us to be 
tempted above that we are able ; but will, with the 
temptation, also make a way to escape, that we may 
be able to bear it. In the present state of the 
Anglican Church it may be harder to acquire than 
elsewhere, still the means are the same as they ever 



b St. Matt. xix. 12. <= Ibid. 1 Cor. vi. 



-O 



o o 

xxviii preface* 

were, and they are such as these : abstinence from 
the company of the other sex ; that covenant with 
the eyes spoken of by the patriarch Job d ; obedience 
to the Church's rules of fasting, together with a 
general low diet ; an earnest coveting e of that most 
excellent gift of chastity, making it a subject of 
special prayer ; and (would that it could be added 
with the hope of being practised) frequent confession f . 
One more consideration may be added, namely, the 
habitual contemplation of the chastity of our Blessed 
Lord Himself, and of His Holy Mother. If we find 
few external helps in the present external provisions 
of our Church, if oar churches are closed against us, 
and the blessed Eucharist, where we are made one 
with the Virgin Body of our Lord, is rarely cele- 
brated, we must endeavour to fulfil the Church's re- 
quirements in private ; and so doing, we shall gain 
time for prayer, and be able, the more we renounce 
the world, to prevail with God to make up to us the 
disadvantages under wilich we lie. 

Since then Holy Virginity is, as all must admit, a 
great grace wherever it is possessed, so it is equally 
clear that to certain persons it is in some sense a 
duty. It would plainly be a duty in those who are 
described by our Blessed Lord as "eunuchs which 
were so born from their mother's womb and in 



d Job xxxi. 1. e 1 Cor. xii. 31. 

f For want of this there is great reason to fear that the solitude in 
which the young among the clergy find themselves, leads to thoughts, if 
not to acts, too apt to wean them from all the good resolutions they 
may have made, of renouncing marriage. 



-O 



) o 

preface. xxix 

another sense it is ecclesiastically and in the abstract, 
the duty of the clergy s, not indeed by Divine obli- 
gation 11 , but by the unvarying practice and repeated 
decrees of councils from the earliest times down to 
the division in the Western Church. It is indeed 
difficult to say how far in the Anglican communion 
modern habits may render the infraction of the 
canons excusable, or even, in particular cases, proper. 
The enforcement of a rule, specially suited to a pure 
and self-denying Church, may be inexpedient at a 
time when comfort is the idol which we worship. It 
is plain too that women are entitled to a share in the 
offices of the Church, in visiting the poor, ministering 
to the sick, and instructing the young ; offices from 
which they might be in great measure debarred now 
that celibacy in the clergy is not recognised as the 
rule, until, which is most to be desired, sisterhoods 
shall again be formed by pious virgins, and endowed 
by the wealthy of the land. However, a Church 
where there is so much to justify the infraction of 
such important rules appertaining to the clergy, must 
needs be a Church in sackcloth, or if not, ought to 
be. And it is but too plain that with the loss of 
celibacy in the clergy, we have also lost the daily 
Sacrifice, which elsewhere is retained, and which is 
so intimately connected with the former ; for, as says 

g The subject of the Continence of the Clergy, has been followed in its 
history, in a note to the new translation of Fleury's Ecclesiastical His- 
tory, bk. xix. ch. 22. note h. p. 183, 4. 

h To maintain this would be in opposition to the Council of Trent, no 
less than to the 32nd Article of the Synod of London, A.D. 1562. 



O 



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xxx preface* 

that holy Bishop, St. Siricius 1 , " among the ancients 
it was customary for priests to marry, because the 
ministers of the Altar were obliged to have a succession 
of the same family, though even they lived separate 
from their wives during the time of their ministration. 
But since Christ came to perfect the law, priests and 
deacons are bound by an inviolable decree to observe, 
, from the day of their ordination, sobriety and continence, 
that they may be well-pleasing to God, in the sacrifices 
which they daily offer up to Him k ." Peradventure 
when the daily Sacrifice is restored to us, the discretion 1 
of our clergy will lead them to judge that a life of 
self-denying continence serves better to godliness than 
that course of life to which their inclination may dis- 
pose them. 

If then, in any sense and to any persons, Holy 
Virginity is a duty ; if to all who can receive the say- 
ing of our Blessed Lord, it is a privilege of exceed- 
ing preciousness, whereby the sons and daughters of 
the Church may resemble in a special manner the 
Church's Virgin Spouse; as well as imitate those who 
have most closely trodden in His footsteps, His Holy 
Mother and the Apostle whom He loved, the ab- 
sence of writings and exhortations on this subject 
must indicate a deplorably low standard of Christian 
practice. How then is this lack to be supplied ? We 
are, all of us, educated in so secular a manner, our 



i A.D. 385. 

k Epist. Rom. Pontif. a Constant. Par. 1721. p. 624, &c. 
1 Article 32. 

O —6 



o o 

preface* xxxi 

intercourse with society is so promiscuous, that original 
treatises can hardly, at any rate yet, be expected. 
We may sincerely feel and confess the dignity of this 
grace, and yet we shall be in great danger of un- 
reality, if we were to write upon it. May not this 
(as well as other considerations which might be men- 
tioned) justify the attempt which is here made to con- 
vey to the English reader the teaching of one who at 
once by his example and his precept set forth the 
praise of virgin purity ? He was approved, while he 
yet lived, by miracles ; and a patient hearing, at the 
least, may be demanded for one whom the Church 
has canonized, and whom we, of the Anglican com- ' 
munion, yearly commemorate on the anniversary of 
his birth-day into Heaven. 

Oriel College, 
Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, 
1843. 



i 



CONTENTS. 



CHAP. I. 

(Page 1.) 

&f>e Objectors reallg toorltrt^ anB tempters. 



CHAP. II. 

(Page 3.) 

®f ootos in general; ti)ep are scriptural anU bfatrmg tofyen 
matte for f)o!g purposes. 



CHAP. III. 
(Page 5.) 

tf>e particular ooto of €Df)astttg. 



CHAP. IV. 

(Page 7.) 

ISooilg Gfymity fcutfjout fattf) anfc mfoartr purity 
unprofitable. 

CHAP. V. 

(Page 10.) 

®ty feloness of tfjose tof)o possess ti)is grace. 

o 



o 

xxxiv 



CONTENTS. 



o 



CHAP. VI. 

(Page 11.) 

Bolp Xlrgmitp neither 1. olamebjortfjp, nor 2. unsmptural. 
CHAP. VII. 

(Page 14.) 

ilor pet 3. tnapeDknt— ^out^fulnxss is no fcar to it. 
CHAP. VIII. 

(Page 16.) 

Z&fytn antr fofjere tfje rtrgtn must scei fox Christ. 



CHAP. IX. 

(Page 20.) 

.from torjem tf>e rtrgtn must scrk Christ— rorjat sfje must 
fcc tfjat 3|c map sczk ijcr. 



CHAP. X. 

(Page 22.) 

&)t rirgtn must put off trje flcsi), tijat 1$€ map seek rjcr. 



CHAP. XI. 

(Page 24.) 

&)tn toil! ^£ anoint rjcr fcoitf) tmorruptton. 



CONTENTS. 





XXXV 



CHAP, XII. 

(Page 28.) 

®&e Virgin must toatcf) anB fnatt for ©fjrtst 
CHAP. XIII. 

(Page 34.) 

Wi)t Utrgxn must toatcf) r)er t)eart, t>r etje, rjer ear, t>r 
tongue. 

CHAP. XIV. 

(Page 38.) 

Angels tottf toatcf) o&er tt> Utrgm. 
CHAP. XV. 

(Page 43.) 

I|er lorU sfjall gutoe tf)c affections of tf)e TTtrgtn's soul. 
CHAP. XVI. 

(Page 45.) 

J^totrestg antf contttience neetiful for ttje Uirgm. 
CHAP. XVII. 

(Page 49.) 

%% tt> Ufrgin must sr)un arrogance, so must sf)e still rise 
afcobe tf)e toorlti in holiness. 

c— — — — ■ — 



o : 

XXXvi CONTENTS. 

CHAP. XVIII. 

(Page 52.) 

fflt)t four Utrtues tofncf) make fjarmonp tn tty Utrgtn's soul. 
CHAP. XIX. 

(Page 57.) 

W)t Utrgtn must in tf)e Communion o* St. ^eur antt rlje 
<£f)urcf), be reatop to gtoe up all for ©fjrist. 

CHAP. XX. 

(Page 61.) 

3ln earnest fcestre tfyat Soft's priests map gatijefmann 
Utrgtns into tfje ^urc^'s foltf. 



O- 



©n ^olg Ftrgtmtg, 



CHAP. L 

W)t ^bfcctors really iaoorltrlp an3j tempters. 

[The Church has ever been at issue with the world, 
and the struggle between Faith and Sight has never 
ceased. How often does the latter gain the victory, 
and we make shipwreck of our faith ! All the com- 
mands, all the counsels of Faith have reference to an 
unseen world, and he alone can follow them whose 
eyes are purged, and open to the invisible. Among 
these counsels is Virginity, a grace we do not honour, 
because we are so earth-bound ; so high a grace of 
Faith that it is no wonder Sight weans us from 
pursuing it. Well then may a treatise on Virginity 
begin with the spiritual interpretation of the Judg- 
ment of Solomon, where Faith and Temptation are 
the rival claimants.] 

In what age of the Church has not this judg- 
ment been celebrated ? Two women came to the king 
and stood before him a . One had overlaid her child in 
the night, and it had died, and she claimed the other's 
son as hers. How was the king to judge the secrets 

* 1 Kings iii. 

O O 

B 



o- 



o 



2 



of their hearts, for evidence on either side there was 
none ? He commanded a sword to be brought, the 
living child to be divided, and half given to one and 
half to the other. She who was not the mother, 
assented and pressed the execution of the sentence ; 
the other, whose bowels yearned upon her son, and 
whose love for him was greater than her desire to 
possess him, said, my lord, give her the living child, 
and in no wise slay it ; and so Solomon (though unable 
to read the heart by divine intelligence) through his 
wisdom pronounced her to be the mother, and the 
other one, as void of natural affection as she was of 
piety. 

Thus, though for a time obscured, the truth finally 
was discovered. The real mother was long kept in 
suspense, but at last the uncertainty was dispelled ; 
and this is written, in a figure, for our learning, that 
we may know that there is nothing hid which shall 
not be brought to light, or secret which shall not be 
revealed. 

By the two women are signified Faith and Temp- 
tation. When the latter has forfeited its own fruit by 
sinful living and sloth, she endeavours to rob Faith of 
her offspring. While the cause is pending, Faith is 
perplexed. At length the sword of Christ brings to 
light the hidden affections ; that sword of which it is 
written, / am come to send a sword upon the earth b , and 
again, A sword shall pierce through thy own soul also c ; 
and it is described thus : The Word of God is quick and 

b St. Matt. x. 34. c st. Luke ii. 35. 



o o 

powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, pierc- 
ing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and 
of the joints and marrow^. A good sword is the word 
of God, there is none like it ; it searches the heart and 
reins, and discerns truth from falsehood, piercing the 
soul not to its destruction but to its salvation. 

Such is the history recorded in the Book of Kings, 
such its moral lesson and spiritual application. Let 
us now attend to the history of Jephthah : it will 
teach us the obligation of vows. 



CHAP. II. 

<®i ootos m general; n)eu are scriptural antt totting 
tofjen mafcfe for f)oto purposes. 

Jephthah e was one of the judges of Israel. Fearful 
of the doubtful event of a war, he vowed that in case 
of victory he would offer for a burnt- offering to the 
God of battles whatever first came forth of the doors 
of his house to meet him. He was conqueror and 
smote the enemy, and on his return his daughter, who 
knew not of his vow, in duteous haste came forth to 
meet him with timbrels and with dances. And when 
he saw her he rent his clothes and said, Alas ! my 
daughter, thou hast brought me very low, for I have 
opened my mouth unto the Lord. And she said to 
him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto 
the Lord, do to me according to that which hath pro- 



d Heb. iv. 12. 



e Judg. xi. 



o o 

ceeded out of thy mouth. She only begged for a 
respite of two months, that she might bewail her 
virginity upon the mountains. At the end of the two 
months, she returned to her father, who fulfilled his 
vow ; though Holy Scripture indeed passes on in 
silence, in abhorrence of the crime. 

God forbid that we should praise the act of Jeph- 
thah ; at the same time his fear of breaking his vow 
was right : as it was said to Abraham, Now I know 
that thou fearest God, seeing that thou hast not 
withheld thy son, thine only son from Me { . A promise 
therefore must not be rashly broken ; yet the same 
passage in the Patriarch's life proves God's hatred of 
Jephthah's crime, in that a ram was substituted for 
Isaac, and offered up for the burnt- offering. 

Jephthah, therefore, must have known that God 
delighteth not in human blood ; for in the divine an- 
nouncement made to Abraham, he might have learnt 
that while God's sendee must take precedence of 
parental affections, yet parents should consecrate 
their offspring to God, not slay them. Strange, that 
the daughter should so much have tendered her 
father's vow, and he not hesitated to slay his child ; 
she been careful of her father's truth, he careless of 
his daughter's death ! 

But why did God in this case permit the crime, and 
prevent it in the former ? Is He a respecter of per- 
sons ? No ! but of holiness and virtue. The reason 
is plain ; God withheld Abraham from a crime, and 

f Gen. xxii. 12. 

O 



c o 

His doing so indicated His Will, it supplied the ex- 
ample which future ages were bound to follow. Per- 
haps, too, the difference of merit contributed to the 
difference in the event. The father rent his clothes, 
the daughter bewailed, both questioned God's mercy. 
Abraham lamented not ; no sooner did he hear the 
divine command than he forgot he was a father, de- 
ferred not the sacrifice, but hastened to obey. Isaac 
hesitated not while following his father; wept not 
while being bound ; begged for no respite when 
ready to be sacrificed. Where faith was more obe- 
dient, mercy was more abundant. Isaac fulfilled the 
interpretation of his name^, he rejoiced in being offered 
to God, and was rewarded by deliverance ; he was 
neither doubtful of God's mercy, nor anxious at his 
own sacrifice ; but in the case of Jephthah there was 
none to arrest his hand, the cruel murder of his 
daughter was only a counterpart to his own demerit. 

CHAP. III. 

<3i x\)t particular &ofo of ©fjasttft. 

A sacrifice of human blood is offered and no 
man opposes ; the oblation of chastity is made, and 
behold objectors. One father's vow can only be paid 
with blood, and it is paid ; another vow$ the virginity 
of his daughter, and men grudge the loving and re- 
ligious oblation. One daughter in tears offers her 

s Gen. xxi. 6. 

o— o 



6 ©n ffiolv STtrgmttg- 

blood to fulfil her father's vow ; another may neither 
for parent's love nor self-devotion willingly perform 
the religious vow. 

And God's priests are blamed for maintaining the 
sacredness of the promise ! Yet did St. John Bap- 
tist condemn unlawful wedlock ; and is it not the 
same conduct as his, that is blamed in them ? What 
was the occasion of his passion and martyrdom but 
his words, It is not lawful for thee to have her h ? 
Why, but because she was another man's wife ; and 
how much more truly may this be said of a virgin 
consecrated to God ! He rebuked a king ; are not 
others to be rebuked ? We have no Herod, (blessed 
be God !) but the world is as Herodias. 

May no word be uttered for virginity ? It is writ- 
ten, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow' 1 , and that 
God is a Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of the 
widows^; are we then to abandon, yea, or condemn the 
holy virgins ? 

Even among heathens virginity was respected ; 
though no religious merit was possible for them, or 
interior purity, yet the virginity of the flesh was had 
in honour. Shall pagan rites be graced by virgins, 
and virginity be excluded from the Church of God ? 
They were virgins by constraint, uninstructed in its 
merit ; with us priests are bound to teach it, and yet 
men would forbid it ! Privileges with them compen- 
sated for renouncing wedlock ; must our maidens be 
constrained to marry ? The pagan priest used force to 

b St. Matt. xiv. 4. Isaiah i. 17. k Psalm lxviii. o. 



c 

fill the number of the vestals ; are we to use force 
against the profession of chastity ? Rather let our 
priests endure the worst than fail to magnify the ob- 
lation of purity. 

Consider that they were virgins who, in preference 
to Apostles, first saw the resurrection of the Lord. 
They were virgins who sat over against the sepulchre, 
the new sepulchre, as St. John calls it, or, as St. Mat- 
thew, the new tomb of Joseph of Arimathcea. It 
was a new tomb, lest it might be said that another and 
not Christ was risen ; it was the tomb of just Joseph, 
for Christ rises from the dead in the new affections of 
the just ; it was not the Lord's own tomb, for He who 
conquered death needed not a tomb of His own ; such 
do those only need, who are dead under the law. 
Mary then saw the resurrection, she first saw and 
believed ; Mary Magdalene too saw, though not all 
free from doubt. 



CHAP. IV. 

ISotttlg <£f)astttE ttat!)out fattf) antf tnfoartf purttg unprofitable. 

And take heed, ye virgins, lest ye too, like her, 
doubt of the resurrection of the Lord. Virginity of 
the flesh is no merit, without integrity of the soul. 
St. Mary Magdalene was forbid to touch the Lord, 
for her faith still wavered 1 ; she toucheth Christ, who 
toucheth Him by faith. 

1 St. John xx. 



o 



o 



8 



Mary Magdalene stood without at the sepulchre 
weeping. She sees not Christ's body, and thinks it 
lost, and because she stands without she weeps. St. 
Peter and St. John ran and entered in, they wept not 
but went away rejoicing. Because she went not in, 
she wept, believed not and thought Him taken away ; 
nay ! she believed not when she saw the Angels who 
asked her, Woman ! why weepest thou ? whom seekest 
thou ? words repeated by the Lord, that we may 
know that Angels speak but what the Lord commands 
them. 

Our Lord repeated the words, Woman, why weepest 
thou ? whom seekest thou ? Woman, in sign of want 
of faith, for he that believes rises to a perfect man, 
unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
Christ ; woman, in reproach not of her sex, but of the 
slowness of her faith ; and note, that the woman still 
wavered, when the virgin had believed. Why weepest 
thou ? Thou art thyself the cause of thy weeping ; 
thou weepest as not seeing Christ ; believe, and thou 
shalt see Him ; He is here, He is never far away from 
such as seek Him. Why weepest thou ? there needs 
not tears, but ready faith ; cease from earthly 
thoughts, forget the passing things of time, and thou 
shalt have no cause to weep. Why weepest thou, 
where others joy ? 

Whom seekest thou ? Dost thou not see that Christ 
is here ? Seest thou not that Christ is the power of 
God, and the wisdom of God ; that Christ is sanctity, 
Christ is chastity, Christ is perfectness ; that Christ is 



o 



■O 



O — - — —0 

©n i^olg Ftrgtmtg, 9 

born of a Virgin ; of the Father, and with the Father, 
and ever in the Father, begotten not made, unchange- 
able, ever beloved, very God of very God ? 

They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where 
they have laid Him. Woman, thou errest in thinking 
that Christ has been taken away, and not rather 
raised by His own power. No man has taken away 
the power of God, the wisdom of God, His adorable 
chastity : Christ is not taken away from the monu- 
ment of the just, from the secret soul and holy 
thoughts of the virgin devoted to Him; none can 
take Him thence, though they would. 

Mary, look on Me ; before, He called her woman; 
now she begins to turn to Christ, He calls her by the 
name of her who bare Him, Mary ; it is the soul, that 
spiritually beareth Christ. Look on Me ; whoso looks 
on Christ receives amendment, while he sees not 
Christ he goes astray. She turned and looked on 
Him, and said, Rabbi ; which is to say, Master : 
whoso looks on Christ, turns towards Him, beholds 
Him, and, seeing Him, advances towards perfection; 
so now Him whom she believed dead, she addresses 
and calls Master. He answered, Touch Me not ; thou 
art but a beginner, thou still art wavering : Touch Me 
not ; touch not the power of God, the wisdom of God, 
His adorable perfectness and purity. But go to My 
brethren ; weep no more without ; go to My elect, 
My most diligent priests, and say to them, I ascend 
unto My Father and your Father, to My God and your 
God. Move now no further question, go to the more 

c o 



o 

perfect and they shall tell thee, how He is My Father 
and how yours ; Mine by divine generation, yours j 
by adoption : My Father, He says, distinguishing Him- j 
self from creatures ; your Father, indicating the grace 
of spiritual adoption. And of Him who naturally is His 
Father, He savs, according to the mysterious sacra - 
ment of the Incarnation, to My God; adding, and 
your God, in sign of His mighty working in us, which 
floweth from that mystery. 

CHAP. V. 
W)Z fefcmcss of tijose tofya possess tf)ts grace. 

For He has most truly become our God since the 
Passion of our Lord, since which time virginity has be- 
come a boon more precious than life itself. If any ob- 
ject, we must be patient ; they, as we, are under grace, 
with them then we would be at peace, but their objec- 
tions must be refuted ; we accuse them not, but by 
their clamour they are their own accusers. 

O that the praises of virginity were seconded by 
examples of holy virginity ! We complain not that 
our words are accused ; we lament that there is so 
little ground in fact for the accusation. Would that 
the charge could be proved against us by instances, 
and not clamour of mere words raised against us ! 
The accusation is a praise, how little do we de- 
serve it ! 

Maidens by holy mysteries initiated and conse- 

o o 



o o 

©n ^olg Utrgmtig- 11 

crated to perpetual chastity, may not be borne away 
from the Holy Altar ; are maidens, whom the world 
allows to choose their husbands, to be hindered, if 
they prefer Almighty God to wedlock ? O that 
rather the betrothed could be recalled, and change the 
wedding raiment for the religious veil of chastity ! 
Blessed are the priests who sow the seeds of purity, 
and inspire their flocks with the desire of virginity ! 



CHAP. VI. 

1|ol2 Utrgtmtp tmtfjer 1. tilameftortljg, nor 2. unscrtptttraL 

Is their doing so either blameworthy, a novelty, or 
inexpedient? (1.) If it be blameworthy, so are all 
our prayers for a blessed resurrection, so is the life of 
Angels, whom in the resurrection we shall resemble ; 
They neither marry nor are given in marriage™. Such a 
state is proposed as our reward ; can then its likeness 
upon earth be blameworthy, while the reality is the 
fruit and object of our prayers ? 

(2.) Or is it a novelty ? If so, if Christ taught it 
not, who to the faithful is the way, we rightly abhor 
it and condemn it. But what saith the Lord : There 
are eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs for the 
kingdom of Heaven s sake 11 . Surely that is a noble war- 
fare, which is for the sake of the kingdom of Heaven, 
and great therefore is the praise our Lord has be- 
stowed on unspotted purity. If it is so excellent, 

m St. Matt. xxii. 30. n St. Matt. xix. 12. 



o o 

12 ©n i&olg STfcgfotts. 

we may say with the Apostles, If the case of a man 
be so with his wife, it is good not to marry. They 
deemed the yoke of wedlock heavy, and chose before 
it the grace of purity. But the Lord knew that while 
all praise it, few could practise it, and He answered, 
All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it 
is given. It is a thing allowed, not in condescension 
to our infirmity, but as a counsel of perfection, and 
so, after He had said, there be eunuchs which have made 
themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of Heavens sake, He 
added, he that is able to receive it, let him receive it. 

Directly after these words, there were brought unto 
Him little children, that by His blessing, they, hitherto 
unspotted, might retain their purity ; and of such is 
the kingdom of Heaven, of such as through ignorance 
of corruption return, as it were, to childhood with all 
its chastity. See how virginity is praised by a voice 
from Heaven, even by our Lord ! 

Mark well the teaching of our divine Saviour : no 
sooner had He forbidden the severance of wedlock, 
save for fornication, than He made mention of the 
gift of chastity ; teaching us that holy wedlock is 
good, but that virginity is better ; that he strays far 
from truth who condemns the former, yet is no less 
unreasonable if he shuts his eyes to its disadvantages; 
for the unmarried woman careth for the things of the 
Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit ; but 
she that is married careth for the things of the world, 
how she may please her husband . 

o 1 Cor. vii. 34. 

o 6 



o — — -c 

Though in marrying she sin not, yet she shall have 
trouble in the flesh ; sharp are the pains of child-birth, 
and wearisome the bringing up of children. These 
however must not sever those who are united, for the 
Apostle has before said, art thou bGund by the tie of 
mutual love unto a wife, seek not to be loosed. 

The bonds of wedlock are therefore good, yet they 
are bonds ; the marriage tie is good, yet it is a tie, a 
tie to the world, she careth for the things of the world, 
how she may please her husband. Still, good as wedded 
love is, the severity of chastity is better than all its 
endearments ; nor is this strange, the outward act is 
often to appearance contradictory to the intention of 
the doer ; chastisement may proceed from the deep- 
est affection, and an enemy may wear the guise of a 
friend, and so it is written, faithful are the wounds of 
a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful?. 
St. Peter wounded, Judas kissed ; poison was spread 
on the lips of one, and his kiss condemned him ; tears 
washed away the other's fault, and he rose more 
perfect : and even so, the Church joys in the wounds 
of chastity <J. 

Let not him then who chooseth wedlock disparage 
virginity ; nor let him who preferreth virginity con- 
demn wedlock : such as have done so, and dared to 
solve the marriage tie, holy Church hath condemned 
long since. Hear her own words : Come, my beloved, 
let us go forth into the field ; let us lodge in the villages; 
let us get up early to the vineyards, let us see if the vine 

p Prov. xxvii. 6. <i Cant. ii. 5. 



14 ©n i^olg Ftrgmtts* 

flourish*. Many a field bears fruit, but that is fair- 
est which abounds no less in flowers. Such is the 
Church's field ; here are tender buds of fresh virginity 
flowering at spring-tide, there in the plains of the 
wood the gravity of serious widowhood, elsewhere 
the full harvest of faithful wedlock fills the granaries 
of the world, and the wedded vines make the presses 
of the Lord run over with abundance. 



CHAP. VII. 

Jlor pet 3. ttuxpetftent— goun)Mness ts no fcar to tt. 

(3.) Finally, is it inexpedient ? The world is 
alarmed for itself, as though marriages are to be no 
more and the human race to be extinct. But what 
need of terror; has there ever in fact been a lack of 
persons willing to be brides ? And as to ills arising 
from either state, broken wedlock has been the source 
of wars and destruction, but to none has consecrated 
virginity occasioned death, for it is higher than human 
law and beyond its sanctions ; religion gives it its 
dignity, and its safeguard is the Faith. 

Nor is there fear of the extinction of mankind. 
Facts have proved the contrary, and shewn that where 
virginity has been most honoured, there most man- 
kind has multiplied. What multitudes of virgins were 
yearly consecrated at Alexandria, in the iUrican 
Church, and throughout the East in the time of 



r Cant. vii. 11, 12. 



o 



•o 



©it i^olg ITtrgtmtg* 



15 



Ambrose. Births were rarer in the West, than con- 
secrations of virgins in the East. Even on this ground, 
then, let not virginity be thought unprofitable ; yea, 
how profitable has it been, seeing that by a Virgin 
salvation came, to render fruitful the Roman world. 

If ye will urge this futile argument, pause and see 
whither it will carry you. It will lead you to defend 
the violation of wedlock, if thereby mankind may be 
more multiplied. 

The wedded need not be alarmed, they have their 
wives ; for the unwedded man, whom has he to blame 
but himself, if he seek a maiden who he knows be- 
forehand will not be a bride ? Fathers need not fear, 
for if other maidens are consecrated, their daughters 
may be the sooner chosen. 

" At least/' one may say, " let none be veiled too 
young." Nor is it denied that caution must be used 
by the priest, and no maid be veiled unwarily. He 
ought to regard her age, measured however by her 
faith and dread of evil. Let her love of purity be the 
measure of her years, her seriousness be counted for 
grey hairs ; let him examine the gravity of her be- 
haviour, the ripeness of her modesty, and the incor- 
ruption of her spirit ; let him see that her mother, 
who is her guardian, be trustworthy, her companions 
discreet. Such an one is already grown grey in 
maidenhood. Years make not the difference, but 
disposition. 

Youthfulness is no bar in itself; years did not ad- 
vance St. Thecla, but holiness. Each age is perfected 



C 



o 



16 ©n ?&oIg Ftrgtmtg. 

in Christ, and can do God sendee ; holiness is the 
substance., what matters it whether it be clad in the 
vest of childhood or old age ? Innocents have suffered 
martyrdom, why may not girls profess virginity ? for 
it is written, out of the mouth of bales and sucklings 
hast Thou ordained strength 5 . Infancy followed Christ 
unto death, may not childhood follow Him as far as 
continence ? Children followed Christ in the desert, 
(for there were women and children fed with the five 
loaves over and above the five thousand men,) may 
not youthful virgins follow Him to His kingdom ? 

Forbid not then the little children to come to 
Christ ; they suffered martyrdom for Him, and of such 
is the kingdom of Heaven. He calls them ; Suffer 
them to come unto Me 1 ; and will you forbid ? Forbid 
not the young maidens, of whom it is written, There- 
fore do the virgins love Thee, and they brought Thee 
into their mother s house 11 . Separate not those little 
ones from the love of Christ, whom they confessed 
while yet unborn, and leapt in their mother's womb 
for joy. 



CHAP. VIII. 

Wfytn an* tofytxz tfy l T trgm must seek for Christ. 

Time and place are but accidents ; God's mercy is 
not limited to places ; the holy Virgin is pronounced 
blessed by the Angel within a house ; and David 

' Psalm viii. 2. 1 St. Matt. xix. 14. u Cant. i. 3 ; viii. 2. 

O O 



-c 



17 



anointed for a prophet ; within doors, abroad on the 
way or in the desert, everywhere Christ heals ; on 
the way the issue of blood was staunched, in an inner 
room Jairus' daughter raised to life, and in the desert 
the people sought Him that He might heal them. 
Neither is any time too early to seek for Christ. It 
is written in St. Luke, When the sun was setting, all 
they that had any sick with divers diseases hrought 
them unto Him, and He laid His hands (thus proving 
Himself both God and man) on every one of them and 
healed them ; and when it was day — the people sought 
Him. The setting sun and the darkness of night 
agree well with the pains and groans of the diseased ; 
the daylight with the people's faith and the gladness 
of the healed ; heaviness may endure for a night, hut 
joy cometh in the morning ; what greater joy than to 
follow Christ into solitude ? 

Let those w T ho devote themselves to Christ learn 
from His divine charity, He healed the sick in multi- 
tudes ; and like Him let them withdraw into solitude 
and shun display; let them if they would share in His 
healing mercy, withdraw from the city, from wanton- 
ness and luxury, and as He knew not softness, so let 
His followers dwell in the world as in a hot sandy 
desert, let them mortify their earthly frame, let their 
bodies faint with hunger unappeased, and their lips 
be parched with unsatisfied thirst. 

We cannot seek Christ too soon ; when the sun 
rose the people sought Him. Let not night overtake 
us, for he only departeth not from Christ who walks 



c 



IS 




in the light. Let us then follow Him in the day- 
time, now is the Church's day, which Abraham saw 
and was glad ; at night He will not be found, by 
night on my bed I sought Him whom my soul loveth, 
I sought Him but I found Him not; I called Him but He 
gave me no answer. 

Think not that Christian maidens can serve their 
Lord equally in the world. He is not found in the 
crowd of men and the thronged thoroughfares ; thus 
speaks the Church in the Song of Songs, I will rise now 
and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad 
ways I w ill seek Him whom my soul loveth : she did 
not find Him; / sought Him, she says, but I found Him 
not, I called Him but He gave me no answer. Let us 
not seek Him where we shall fail to find Him. He 
does not wander in the market-place, for Christ is 
peace, but in the world is strife ; Christ is righteous- 
ness, in the world is iniquity ; Christ is energy, in 
the world is vacant sloth ; Christ is charity, in the 
world is detraction ; Christ is good faith, in the world 
is fraud and circumvention ; Christ is in the Church, 
in the world idolatry ; and in the Church the widow 
is righted, in the world she is oppressed. Shun then, 
Christian virgins, the public walks, shun the places 
of public concourse ; shun the hot ball room ; the 
worldly bazaar (the more worldly because hypocri- 
tical) ; the fashionable watering-place ; ay, and the 
Church, which should be God's house of prayer, but 
which is made the scene of man's display and man's 
idolatry, where Christ's little ones, the poor and 



o 



o 



o 



— o 



©n ?J^oIg Ffrgmftg. 



19 



wretched, cannot (for delicacy and pride exclude 
them) come to worship. Impurity lieth in wait 
in the public streets ; ponder the warning of the 
Wise Man in the book of Proverbs, Say unto wis- 
dom, Thou art my sister; and call understanding thy 
kinswoman : that they may keep thee from the strange 
woman, from the stranger that flattereth with her 
words* — her house is the way to hell, going down to 
the chambers of death. 

Woe to us if, when we seek Him, we find Him 
not ! and woe to us if we seek Him where we ought 
not ; if we seek Him in the houses or conventicles of 
the teachers of dissent and heresy, who falsely assume 
the name of teachers ; if we seek Him with self-will 
and not humbly in His Church. Often is the Church 
grievously wounded through this our wilfulness : the 
watchmen, this is her own complaint, that went about 
the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me ; 
the keepers of the walls took away my cloak from me. 
Let not, O virgins, our Mother suffer through our 
self-will ; let not our cloak, the garment of discretion, 
the symbol of endurance (how unlike the soft clothing 
of them who dwell in kings' houses), be taken from 
us ; the cloak of doctrine worn by Christ and left by 
Him to His Apostles, let it not be taken from thee ; 
only as He bids thee give thy cloak also to him who 
shall take thy coat, be ready to array the ignorant and 
naked in the vesture of thy discretion, and impart to 
him the symbol of thy Master's doctrine. 



* Prov. vii. 4—27. 



O- 



c 



' .- 1 

20 ©n %ol2 3?trgmttg. 

CHAP. IX. 

JFrom fcofjom tfa Ftrgtn must seek ©Ijrist— toijat si)e must 
bz tfjat I|c mag seek far. 

Let us, Christian maidens, seek Christ where the 
Church seeks Him, on the mountains of fragrant 
smell, that is, from religious priests, who, living in 
exalted holiness, like hills whose tops are covered 
with sweet flowers, breathe forth the odour of perfec- 
tion. Christ shuns the din of men, the busy market- 
place, the public walks, the restless concourse : Make 
haste my Beloved, and be Thou like to a roe or to a young 
hart upon the mountains of spices. The wily adder, 
the snarling dog, the groveling, earth-bound serpent 
His soul hateth, He dwells in the elevated heights of 
holiness ; in such daughters of the Church alone is 
His abode who can say, we are unto God a sweet odour 
of Christ. There is an odour of death unto death, 
even in them that perish ; in them is the odour of life 
unto life, who with a quick and living faith exhale the 
sweet- smelling odour of the Resurrection, and, risen 
with Christ, set their affection on things above. 

Blessed Joseph of Arimathea and St. Nicodemus 
were mountains of spices, they took the body of 
Jesus and wound it in linen clothes with spices ; so 
also are all who believe that Jesus died and was 
buried and rose again, they too crown the hill-top of 
true faith with the blossoms of holiness. 



o 



o — 

©n i^olg ITtrgtmts* 21 

Where then is Christ to be sought ? In the heart and 
from the lips of His discreet and prudent ministers. 
But this is not all ; How must we come prepared, that 
we may find Him ? 

We have seen that the people sought Him in the 
desert ; and He says Himself, / am the rose of 
Sharon s plain, and the lily of the valleys ; as the lily 
among thorns. He may be found in various places ; 
and virgins blest with various (but all harmonious) 
graces may find Him. / am the rose of Sharon s 
plain ; see how He loves the simple open-heartedness 
of a pure virgin soul : and the lily of the valleys, the 
emblem not of luxury, of pleasure, or of wantonness, 
but of simplicity and lowliness : as a lily among thorns; 
the flower of fragrant smell springs amid the rough- 
nesses of sharp discipline, and from a broken heart ; 
a broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not 
despise, yea, my God, Thou lovest. 

This is, Christian maidens, the true wilderness and 
solitary place that shall be glad, the true desert that is 
bid rejoice and blossom as the rose?. In this wilder- 
ness is the good Tree that bringeth forth good fruit, 
that spreads forth its arms in holy deeds, and whose 
head is God. Let us, the trees of the wood, send 
forth branches in like manner, for, as the apple tree 
among the trees of the wood, so is my Beloved among 
the sons ; so may the Church rejoice and be glad, 
and say, / sat down under His shadow with great de- 



y Isaiah xxxv. 1. 



o o 

22 ©n P^olg 'Ftrgtmtg, 

light, and His fruit was sweet to my taste 1 ; yea, let 
her say, joyful at the issue of our faith, He brought me 
to the banqueting -house, and His banner over me was 
love*. Love cannot be where there is not faith ; the 
three sureties of the Church are faith, hope, and love ; 
when hope has gone before and the foundation of 
faith has been laid, the banner of love is lifted up, 
and holy Church is made one in herself and with her 
Lord. 

CHAP. X. 

Utrgm must put off tf)e ffesf), ti)at 1§* matt seek f)er. 

Ye have heard, daughters of the Church, how ye 
are to seek Christ ; hear also how ye may deserve His 
search for you. Call then for the Holy Spirit with 
the Church's prayer, Awake, O north wind, and come, 
thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices 
thereof may flow out. Let my Beloved come into His 
garden, and eat His pleasant fruits b . The garden of 
the Word is the soul that blossoms with the flowers of 
spring, that is, with Christian virtues, and His pleasant 
fruits are the fruits of holiness. Whether thou eat 
or drink, if thou call Him, Christ is present and 
saith, Come, eat of My bread and drink of the wine 
which I have mingled ; yea, if thou sleep, He cometh 
to the door and knocks. Often He comes and puts 
in His hand by the hole of the door d , yet not to all, 

z Cant. ii. 3. a Cant. ii. 4. b Cant. iv. 16 . v. 1. 

c Prov. ix. 5. d Cant. v. 4. 



o o 

©n ?J^olg STtrgtnfta. 23 

but only to the soul that can say, I put off my coat at 
night e . O Christian soul, ere Christ, will come to 
thee, even as He put off the flesh, that for thy sake 
He might triumph over the principalities and powers 
of the world, so must thou, in the dark night of this 
life, put off the vest of the life of sense. 

Hear the spiritual meaning of the words of the vir- 
gin soul; / have put off my coat, how shall I put it on ? 
I have put off the deeds of the body and of earth, and 
even though I would, I know not how to resume 
them. Shame forbids return to them, and virgin 
modesty, nay, memory fails me, for chastity of con- 
versation by long continuance blots out the recollec- 
tion of past impurity. / have washed my feet, how 
shall I defile them ? A twofold meaning is contained 
in the washing of the feet. It is a symbol of humility, 
as it is written, If I, your Lord and Master, have 
washed your feet, ye ought also to wash one another's 
feet f ; and it is a mystery of the faith, as it is written, 
If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me%. This 
was said to blessed Peter, how great need then have 
our feet of washing ! and how careful must we be of 
soiling them, for of a second washing there is no pro- 
mise. Holy Church saith not, I have washed my feet, 
how shall I again wash them ? but how shall I defile 
them ? and in agreement with the sensible figure we 
must wash out all traces of bygone defilement. Once, 
Christian virgins, your feet defiled with sin, have 
been washed in the fount whose springs are in 

e Cant. v. 3. f St. John xiii. 14. s St. John xiii. 8. 



24 ©n ?^olg Ftrgtnttg. 

eternity, once cleansed in the sacramental mystery ; 
beware lest they be soiled again by the uncleanness of 
desire, or polluted by the filthy mire of unchastened 
acts. Would ye learn how to secure them from de- 
filement, hear the beloved Psalmist, Our feet shall 
stand in thy gates, Jerusalem^ 1 . This Jerusalem is 
not the earthly but the heavenly one 1 , the city of the 
living God, and we plant our feet therein, as the 
Apostle teaches us, by having our conversation in 
Heaven*, living in constant virtue, righteous deeds 
and living faith. 



CHAP. XL 
&f)tn foil! I|e anoint far totti) mcorruptton. 

Whoso thus liveth may say, My Beloved put in 
His hand by the hole of the window, and my bowels 
were moved for Him : / rose up to open to my Beloved 1 . 
It is good that our inward parts be moved at the ap- 
proach of the Lord. If the Blessed Mary was moved 
when the Angel came in to her, well may we be 
moved when Christ comes to us. When God imparts 
His Divine Presence to us, our bodies forget the affec- 
tions of sense, and our outward man is lost, and is as 
though it were not. Be thou also moved, holy maiden, 
and as Israel, by God's command, ate the Paschal 

h Psalm cxxii. 2. ; Heb. xii. 22. 

k Phil. iii. 20. • Cant. v. 4. 



0— — — — — o 

©n i^olg Utrgtmrg. 25 

Lamb in haste m , haste thou too, arise, open the door, 
for Christ is there and knocketh at the threshold 11 : 
if thou open, He will enter in, and the Father will 
enter with Him. 

Not only when He is entered does He leave a 
reward ; He forestalls His entrance with a blessing. 
The soul is still thrilling, still in the darkness of the 
night is it feeling the walls of its house, still seeking 
for the door whereat Christ is standing, still loosing 
itself from the bonds of the flesh and the thraldom of 
the body ; Christ is still knocking without, when (it 
is written), my hands dropped with myrrh and my fin- 
gers with sweet-smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the 
lock °; myrrh, the fragrant odour of faith, drops from the 
hands of the chaste soul; that myrrh which was the of- 
fering of righteous Nicodemus the master in Israel, who 
first had grace to hear the mystery of the Baptismal 
laverP and brought at the entombment a mixture of 
myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight, and 
wound the spices in linen clothes with the body of the 
LordQ. His offering was an emblem of the fragrancy of 
faith, wherewith the soul that begins to open the door to 
Christ and is buried with Him in Baptism, receives, 
first of all, the grace of the Lord's burial; even burial 
without corruption. For how could the flesh of Him 
whose name is as ointment poured forth, see corrup- 
tion or any smell of death pass over it ; yea, seasoned 
by the fragrant flower of Divinity, an everlasting and 

,u Exod. xii. 11. . » Cant. y. 2. Cant. v. 5. 

p St. John iii. 1. q St. John xix. 39. 

■ o 



o o 

26 ©n P?olg STtrgtmrg, 

an evergreen, it rose again ; and in its resurrection 
our flesh too is raised by communication of the oint- 
ment poured forth* . 

This ointment, that seasoneth all whereon it is 
poured, was indeed from all eternity, but it was with 
the Father and in the Father. Contained in Heaven 
as in a vessel, it was shed only on Angels and Arch- 
angels ; then opened the Father His mouth and said, 
Lo ! I have given Thee for a covenant of the people*, 
and for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou may est be My 
salvation unto the end of the earth; the Son came 
down and all things were filled with the new odour of 
the Word. The Father's heart uttered a good Word 1 , 
the Son was the fragrant odour, and the Holy Ghost 
breathed it forth and shed Himself abroad, throughout 
the hearts of all ; The love of God is shed abroad in 
our hearts by the Holy Ghost u . 

This fragrant ointment the Incarnate Son poured 
not forth at once, but confining it in His sacred body 
as in a vessel, He waited the appointed time ; The 
Lord God, He saith, hath given Me the tongue of the 
learned, that I should know how to speak in season*. 
The hour came, He opened His mouth, virtue went 
out of Him, and He poured forth the sweet savour of 
the ointment. It was poured forth upon the Jews, it 
was gathered by the Gentiles ; it was poured forth in 
Judea, its fragrance spread throughout all lands. Here- 
with anointed, Holy Mary the Blessed Virgin con- 

r Cant. i. 2. s Isaiah xlii. 6; xlix. 6. 1 Psalm xlv. i. 

u Rom. v. 5. x Isaiah 1. 4. 

O O 



o 



o 



27 



ceived, the Blessed Virgin bare the odour of sweet- 
ness, the Son of God ; this ointment was shed forth 
upon the waters, and endued them with the power of 
sanctifying; the Three Children were anointed with 
this ointment, and the fiery furnace bedewed them 
with cool moisture y ; herewith was Daniel anointed, 
and the lions' mouths were tamed, and their fierce- 
ness soothed 2 . 

Daily this ointment floweth and never faileth. Vir- 
gin, take thy vessel, draw near that thou mayest be 
filled with the ointment. Receive the precious oint- 
ment of spikenard, valued at three hundred pieces, 
receive it without money and without price, freely 
given, that all may have it freely. Receive the 
anointing, Christian virgin, grudge not like Judas that 
it is poured forth for burial, be thou buried with thy 
Lord, and be partaker in His entombment, see that 
Christ be buried in thee, so shalt thou, like Him, not 
see corruption. Take heed to thy vessel and close 
it fast, lest the ointment run out and it be lost. Close 
it with the key of perpetual purity and unblemished 
virginity, with shamefacedness in speech, with lowli- 
ness and humility. 

Blessed art thou, pure virgin soul, if thou possess 
this ointment ; for as she that had it said, / opened to 
my Beloved and He passed by a , so shall thy Beloved, 
the Lord Jesus, pass by into the inmost of thy soul ; 
so shalt thou be privileged to partake of that which 

y Dan. iii. 23. [Song of Three Child. 27.] 2 Dan. vi. 22. 



a Cant. v. 6. 



C 



o 



o o 

28 ©n ftols Ftrgmttg. 

Simeon prophesied to the Mother of thy God, A 
sword shall pass through thine own soul also h ; for what 
else is that sword but the living Word of God, a sharp 
and piercing sword, that penetrateth all earthly 
thoughts, yea, every barrier, and searcheth the inmost 
recesses of the heart ? 

CHAP. XII. 

W)t Utrgtn must toatcf) anD toait for (£J)rist 

Meditate, thou pure one, — I speak not to you, 
once washed in holy Baptism, yet, daughters of the 
world ! I speak not to you, whose raiment, ill-befitting 
a Christian virgin, seems to indicate your greater 
wealth or higher rank in proportion to its unseemly 
exposure of that which maiden modesty would hide ; 
Christ loveth not the rustling of your silks, the 
splendour of your satins, your broidered hair, the glit- 
tering of your attire, your chains of gold, your neck- 
laces and bracelets, your stomachers of sparkling 
gems and ear-rings of bright jewels, vanities of the 
Evil One, slaves to whom, ye spend upon these bau- 
bles the earthly substance whereof ye are God's un- 
faithful stewards for His Church and the Church's 
poor, vanities which are sources of bickering and 
envy, jealousy and strife ; — but thou pure one, per- 
chance of no exalted station, perchance of lowly 

b St. Luke ii. 35. 



o — — o 

birth, or child of poverty and worldly wretchedness, 
virgin not alone in body but in the snowy whiteness 
of an untainted soul, since thou resemblest more the 
glorious Church, that has not spot or wrinkle, who, 
in the Song of Songs holds intercourse with Christ, do 
thou like her, on thy bed in the night- season, seek in 
thy meditation Him whom thy soul loveth ; cease not 
to watch and hope for His appearing. 

If He seem to thee to tarry, arise ; He seems to 
tarry because thou slumberest ; He seems to tarry 
because thou ceasest to be instant in prayer ; He 
seems to tarry because thou liftest not up thy voice 
in Psalms. Devote the first-fruits of thy vigils to 
Christ; sacrifice the first-fruits of thine actions to 
Christ. Hear His voice calling thee, Come with Me 
from Lebanon, My spouse, come with Me from Lebanon; 
look from the head of Amana c . What is Amana's stream, 
the stream of Truth, save Baptism, across whose flood 
thou passest to thy conflict with the world ; and what 
its fountain-head save Christ, whom when thou hast 
apprehended, thou shalt look back in triumph on thy 
baffled foe ? He hath separated thee from the lions 
dens, from the mountains of the leopards, that is, from 
the incursions of spiritual wickednesses ; the beauty 
of thy Christian graces is pleasant in His eyes ; How 
much better, saith He, is the smell of thine ointments, 
that is, the fragrancy of thy virgin integrity, than all 
spices / the smell of thy garments is like the smell of 
the frankincense of Lebanon, A garden enclosed is 

c Cant. iv. 8, &c. 



30 ©n 3&oIg TtrgmttD* 

My sister, My spouse ; thy plants are an orchard of 
pomegranates, icith pleasant fruits. Seek from Him then, 
that the Holy Spirit may breathe on thee, may 
breathe upon thy bed and enhance the fragrancy of 
thy pure piety and spiritual grace. Surely He will 
hear and He will answer thee ; / sleep, saith He, but 
My heart icaketh d . 

Thou hearest His voice as He knocketh at the 
door, Open to Me, My sister, My love, My dove, My 
undefiled ; His love, because thou lovest; His dove, 
for as a dove thou art simple and harmless ; His un- 
defiled, for thou art a virgin. My head is filled icith 
deiv ; as the dew of heaven at even-tide allayeth the 
dryness the sun has caused, and cooleth the night- 
fall, so the dew of our Lord, Jesus Christ, fresheneth 
the thick darkness of this world with the moisture 
of life eternal. This is the head which the blazing 
heat of this world cannot parch ; on Him, as man, the 
Spirit was poured without measure, the sap of life 
could not be drained in Him, so that He truly was 
the Tree of Life, ever flourishing though under the 
scorching sun of this world's vanity. Therefore He 
calls Himself a green tree, as in the holy Gospel He 
saith, If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be 
done in the dry e ? and the dew wherewith Christ's 
head is filled, is more than enough to preserve itself 
from dryness, it drops besides on those that are His 
body ; it drops in plenty yet is never spent, and its 
full tide, though ever flowing, fails not. My locks, 

d Cant. v. 2. e St. Luke xxiii. 31. 



c — o 

©n p?ob Ffrgfmtg. 31 

saith He, are filled with the drops of the night ; upon 
His head the razor came not ; He is the Prince of 
Peace, and steel is the sign and implement of war, 
therefore are His locks unshorn ; and they are filled 
with the drops of the night, the meaning of which we 
have already seen, even the dew of the Holy Spirit, 
which refreshes the parched and weary soul, watering 
the dry and sun-baked soil that it may bear flowers of 
virtue and fruits of holiness. But we must not haste 
too fast ; His locks are, as of a holy Nazarite, 
unshorn, the razor hath not touched His sacred 
head ; yet how unlike the ringlets of the wanton 
daughters of fashion, dressed with crisping-pins, 
curied and plaited with a hireling's art, divided hither 
and thither with minutest care, redolent with luxuri- 
ous perfumes and scented oils, these are not orna- 
ments but criminal devices ; not the modest head- 
gear of the virtuous maiden, but impure allurements 
to unchaste thoughts and enticements of a soul, if not 
a body, the victim of prostitution. These haughty 
daughters of England, who walk with outstretched 
neck and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they 
go, despise the degraded and wretched woman whom 
deceit has lured, or agonizing poverty has driven from 
the paths of virtue; think you that their virtue would 
be proof, if the fear of public infamy were withdrawn, 
against the deed of sin, when now so many acts 
imply that the thought of sin is no stranger to their 
minds ? 

His locks unshorn shine with the unction of all 
C O 



•o 



32 



holy graces ; this is the spiritual meaning of Samson's 
history : while the true Nazarite has his locks un- 
shorn he is invincible, but if he lose them, lose these 
Christian virtues, his strength falls prostrate, and 
when the tempter cries, The Philistines be upon thee, 
he finds the Lord departed from him. 

Seeing that all this is true, seek not to resume the 
coat of earthly deeds which thou hast once put off f ; 
neither think that carefulness is needless to avoid it, 
it often meets thine eyes, inviting thee to put it on, 
and it is often offered thee by spiritual wickedness. 
Forget how to put it on, so forget as not to know 
how to put it on again, even if thou wouldst at any 
time ; and as thou hearest the Lord knocking at the 
door, in thrilling hope rise at the sound, unshackled 
from all affections of the body; as thou art rising, pre- 
pare thy inward soul with prayers that thou mayst 
strive to rise from earth heavenwards, and to open 
the door of thy heart. 

As thou movest towards Christ, thy actions will 
breathe the odour of faith, as it is written, / rose up 
to open to my Beloved, and my hands dropped with 
myrrh and my fingers with sweet-smelling myrrh. Lift 
up thine hands and smell their fragrancy; follow, as it 
w r ere, the scent of holiness in thine actions, with un- 
wearied and ever-watchful alacrity. The sweet smell 
of thy right hand will gladden thee, all thy limbs, 
when thou risest, will be redolent with the fragrancy 
of the Resurrection, and thy fingers will drop with 



f Cant. v. 3. 



O 



o 



o c 

j 

©n i^olg 'Ftrgtm'tg, 33 j 

myrrh, that is, thy spiritual deeds shall be perfumed 
with the grace of true faith. Thus then, O virgin, 
thou wilt take delight in thy inward self, thou wilt be 
pleasant to thyself and lovely to thyself, and thou wilt 
begin to lose, what sinners are ever feeling, that harass- 
ing vexation with thyself ; the body and the world 
will lose their charms, and thy simplicity, divested of 
the cloak of sin and worldliness, will be thy happiness. 

If thou be such, then Christ desires thee ; if thou 
be such, Christ hath chosen thee. Open then thy 
heart's door, and as He has promised (for He is faith- 
ful) He will enter in. Embrace Him whom thou hast 
sought ; come near to Him and thou shalt be illumi- 
nated ; hold Him, entreat Him not to leave thee, im- 
plore Him not to depart ; otherwise He will go from 
thee, for the Word of God runneth very swiftly; 
lukewarmness cannot take Him, carelessness cannot 
hold Him. Let thy soul wait upon Him in His 
Word, press close upon His footsteps, for He quicklv 
passeth by. 

Yet as the Church saith, I sought Him but I could 
not find Him; I called Him but He gave me no answer %; 
think not because He so soon leaveth thee, that there- 
fore He is offended with thee. Thou calledst, didst 
entreat Him, and openedst to Him, yet He is gone, 
and why ? To prove thee ; and often He thus suffers 
us to be tempted. Call to mind also His words to 
the multitudes that besought Him not to depart from 
them ; He said, To other cities also must I preach the 

s Cant. v. 6. 



G- 



-C 



34- 



©n P?olg STtrguutg. 



Word of God ; for therefore am I sent h . Still if He 
seem to depart from thee, stand not idle, but go- forth 
and again seek for Him. And now that thou art a 
virgin devoted to God, fear no more (as thou must 
once have feared) those watchmen (in their spiritual 
sense) who patrol the world ready to apprehend all 
that wander there ; fear them no more as they go 
about the city ; fear no more the wounds 1 which can- 
not hurt such as follow Christ. Let them arrest thy 
body, that is, take away thy natural life, what matters 
it, Christ is near thee. When thou hast found Him, 
O then learn where thou mayest abide with Him, lest-, 
through thy negligence, He quit thee ; and if thou wilt 
learn this, hear the teaching of holy Church. 



W)t Utrgm must toatcf) tyx fcart, Ijer £p, tyx ear, f)£r tongue. 

For who but holy Church can teach thee how to 
retain Christ ? yea, she hath already taught thee, if 
thou wilt only hear her. She says, It was bat a little 
that I passed from them (that is, from the persecutors, 
the evil powers of this world), but I found Him whom 
my soul loveth ; I held Him and would not let Him go k . 
How then is Christ held ? Not by chains of violence, 
not by tightened ropes ; He is bound by the ties of 
love, by spiritual cords, by affection of the heart. 

h St. Luke iv. 43. 1 Cant. v. 7. ^ Cant. iii. 4. 



CHAP. XIII. 



o 



_ — Q 

<®n i^olg STtrgmttg- 35 

Wouldst thou too retain Christ, seek Him perpetually, 
fear not punishment, fear not torments ; nay, thou 
mayest more surely find Christ, when in the hands of 
persecutors. It was but a little, says the Church, that 
I passed from them, but I found Him whom my soul 
loveth ; no sooner shalt thou have passed from the per- 
secutors' hands, that is, no sooner have so resisted the 
powers of the world as not to fall under them, than 
Christ will meet thee, and will not suffer thee to be 
long tempted. 

Then may the virgin who thus seeks Christ and 
finds Him say, / held Him and would not let Him go, 
until I had brought Him into my mother s house and 
into the chamber of her that conceived me 1 . What is 
thy mother s house, and her chamber, but the secret 
chambers of thy inward nature ? Keep carefully this 
house, cleanse the inner rooms of this house, that it 
may be uncontaminated, and, unsoiled by the filthi- 
ness of a corrupt conscience, may grow up unto a 
spiritual house joined together by the Corner-stone, 
into a holy priesthood and dwelling of the Holy 
Ghost. No maiden who thus seeks Christ and thus 
entreats Him, shall be abandoned by Him; nay, far 
otherwise, He will often visit her, for He is with us 
even unto the end of the world. 

Thou hast heard, Christian maiden, how Christ is 
found and retained ; even He who in the Church's 
words, put in His hand by the hole of the window m ; 
by which window is meant, that eye of the mind, that 

i Cant. iii. 4. ™ Cant. tf. 4. 

o : o 



a 



o 



36 



spiritual sight, through which we see the works of 
Christ. And thus, O virgin, let Christ come to thee ; 
through this window let Christ put His hand to thee, 
and let the love of Him, the Word, displace all other 
and alone possess thee. If thou wouldst have Him 
do thus, prepare thyself, cleanse the windows of thy 
soul, and let no dust of sinful acts obscure them. Let 
not a virgin's eyes exhibit aught offensive or corrupt ; 
far from them be soft, unchastened blandishments, 
far from them the languishing allurements which se- 
parate from Christ. 

Nor let the ear, framed to receive holy instruction, 
be made a means of vanity. Why should a Christian 
virgin's ear be pierced to carry brilliant pendants ; it 
needs no meretricious ornaments, the only one she 
seeks is this, to hear and listen to the wholesome pre- 
cepts of her teachers. 

Learn too in the night-time, that is, in the darkness 
of this world, to keep thy door, even the door of thy 
lips, closed to all save Christ : yea, let Him too, when 
He cometh, find it closed, nor open it until He call 
thee. Is it not written, a garden enclosed is My sister, 
My spouse ; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed P Open 
not thy lips to vain gossiping : nay, speak not on 
holy things, unless with Christ ; for what hast thou 
to do with others ? speak with Christ alone, with Him 
only hold converse. If women are commanded, as 
it is w T ritten, to keep silence in the Church, how 
much more are virgins and devout widows! The 
enemy of chastity is ever in wait to take advan- 



O 



O — 

©rt i^olg Utrgtmtg, 37 

tage; a casual word may drop which thou wouldst 
fain recal. 

Had the door of Eve's lips been kept by her fast 
closed, she had not given answer to the serpent's 
questions and Adam had not been deceived. Death 
came in by the window n , by the mouth of Eve ; even 
so by thy mouth death comes in, if thou speak either 
falsely, immodestly, wantonly, or unseasonably. Let 
then the doors of thy lips be closed, the threshold of 
thy voice be barred, then only to be unfastened when 
thou hearest the voice of God, and the Word of God 
speaketh to thee. 

And so shall thy hands drop with myrrh and thou 
shalt smell the fragrancy of Baptismal grace ; dead 
with Christ to the elements of the world, buried with 
Him and wound in spices, thou shalt also rise with 
Him from the dead. Why are your maxims still as 
though living in the world ? Touch not, taste not, 
handle not what it has to offer, things which, while 
they are being used, tend to corruption . Chastity 
has nought in common with corruption ; bury, there- 
fore, all worldly and fleshly cares. Ye who are risen 
with Christ, seek those things that are above, where 
Christ is; and if ye seek Christ, ye see God the Father, 
for Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 

The virgin that seeks Christ must shun the gaze of 
men, avoid the public streets and crowded walks ; let 
not her voice be shrill ; let her gait be staid, herself 

n Jer. ix. 21. Col. ii. 20, 21, &c. 

| 



38 ©n ?^oIg Iflrghutg. 

unheard, unseen. The Apostle would have your con- 
verse all unearthly, yea, rising on spiritual wings 
almost beyond your nature, upwards to Heaven ; Set 
your affection, he says, on things above, and not on 
things on the earth. And, for that this cannot be 
while ye are yet imprisoned in the flesh, and the soul, 
while the body lives, is still bound in a measure by its 
law, and cannot rise freely heavenwards, the holy 
Apostle adds, For ye are dead, and your life is hid 
with Christ in God: if hid with Christ, let it not ap- 
pear to the world, for Christ also is to the world 
dead, and lives to God. 

Thus hast thou seen how Christ would have thee 
desire Him ; not with vain talking mayest thou unclose 
thy lips, but to Him alone ; and when thou hast 
opened to Him, He passeth through to the secret 
chambers of thy heart, and thy soul shall fail ivhen He 
speaketh?, fail and find in the world no stay, but abide 
in Christ and rest in Him. 



CHAP. XIV. 



Angels kntll fcoatcf) ofcer tf)£ Ftrgtn. 



Again is it written, i" sought Him but I could not 
find Him Q : He will withdraw Himself to try thee, to 
prove thy love. 



p Cant. v. 6. q Cant. v. 6. 

o o 



) o 

On i^olg Utrgtmtg* 39 

The keepers of the walls found me x : we have already 
seen one interpretation of the watchmen, viz. the 
wicked who watch for the just and are permitted to 
trouble them, and who do indeed prevail against such as 
will not persevere. There is another and a more con- 
soling interpretation. We read of a city whose gates 
are ever open ; The gates of it shall not at all be shut by 
day, for there shall be no night there ; and they shall 
bring the glory and honour of the nations into it s . 
This, O virgin, is that Jerusalem, which is in Heaven, 
wherein thou art already kept perfect and undented ; 
for there in no wise entereth into it any thing common* 
or unclean, and such is not chastity, such is not 
modesty; they are written in the Lamb's Book of 
LifeK 

If we have found this holy city, let us enter therein ; 
let us behold its light, its walls, its tribes, the founda- 
tions of its walls, and the watchmen thereof. But 
how enter therein ? In this city is life, and there is 
one way to life, even Christ ; let us therefore follow 
Christ. The city is in Heaven ; how ascend thither ? 
The Evangelist teaches us in the Revelations, The 
Spirit led me to a great and high mountain, and shewed me 
that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of 
Heaven. Let us ascend in the spirit, flesh cannot 
mount thither. Let us thus ascend towards Heaven, 
that she may descend to us, who hath the glory of God, 
whose light is like unto a stone most precious, even like 

r Cant. v. 6. s Rev. xxi. 25. 1 Rev. xxi. 27. 

O O 



o _o 

a jasper stone, clear as crystal ; that hath a wall great 
and high ; that hath twelve gates, and at the gates 
twelve Angels, and names written thereon, which are the 
names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel, and 
its wall hath twelve foundations, and in them the names 
of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb u . The Apostles 
are the foundations of the heavenly city, and the 
Corner-stone is Christ, in whom all the building fitly 
framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the 
Lord x . The city hath the glory of God ; within, with- 
out, everywhere is God ; wherefore do ye too, holy 
virgins and all ye righteous, cherish unspotted chastity 
of soul, for ye are fellow-citizens of the Saints, and of 
the household of God?. Then shall ye inherit the 
dignity of your heavenly country, if ye seek Christ 
within the bounds of this holy city, whereunto ye 
enter by faith and the precious pearls 2 of holy deeds, 
illumined by the light of Patriarchs, founded upon the 
Apostles, and having your conversation amid Angels. 

The keepers of the walls took away my cloak from 
me. As we are now meditating on a second sense of 
the keepers of the walls, there is a corresponding 
variety in the explanation of their taking away the 
cloak. Above, we saw that the cloak that was taken 
away from the wanderer in the market-place and 
streets, signified the garment of discretion which is 
lost by mixing in the world ; here the Angels take 
away the cloak, by which we are to learn that God is 

« B,ev. xxi. 11—14. * Eph. ii. 21. 

y Eph. ii. 19. * Rev. xxi. 21. 



O 



o— o 

©n ?l?olg Utrgtttttg- 41 

merciful to all, that many who are obliged to mix in 
worldly matters may still find Christ if they seek Him 
continually (O that we too may be partakers of grace 
with them !), that they who earnestly seek Him in the 
night-time* of worldly business, in the courts of law 
or the busy mart, thus finding even in the world, the 
city of our God; in the court-house, a type of the 
divine tribunal ; and in the crowded streets, a Chris- 
tian brotherhood, who assemble at the supper of the 
Lord ; such as these may meet the Angels in the city 
of God, and be by them stripped of the cloak of 
earthly thoughts and earthly deeds. They may say 
with holy David, Lord, have I not remembered Thee in 
my bed h ? and they follow his counsel, Ye that by 
night stand in the house of the Lord, lift up your hands 
in the sanctuary . 

Nay, not only are we led to see here on earth a 
figure of things above, our thoughts are raised to the 
heavenly city itself, the awful seat of everlasting 
justice, and to the streets which are watered with a 
pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding 
out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, of which 
it is written, Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and 
rivers of waters in the streets d . Here, if we seek 
Christ, we shall be found by the Angels. 

To proceed ; They smote me, they wounded me. 
There is a sword that wounds, but heals in wounding. 
The Word of God is a good sword, and its strokes 

a Cant. iii. 1. b Psalm lxiii. 7, 

c Psalm cxxxiv. 2. d Prov. v. 16. 

O O 





42 ©n i^olg 'Ftrgtmtg* 

are health- giving. There is a wound which love 
inflicts, a sickness that harmeth not, as it is written, 
/ am sick of love e , and this is the sickness of the per- 
fect virgin, whose sole desire and earnest longing is 
Christ. The wounds inflicted by the Word of God are 
blessed, for, The kisses of an enemy are deceitful, but 
faithful are the wounds of a friend. Rebecca was thus 
wounded and sick of love, when she left her parents 
to become the wife of Isaac f ; so likewise was Rachel, 
who envied her sister and loved her husband s, she 
envied her sister's fruitfulness, for she was herself bar- 
ren, a type of holy Church, of whom it is written, 
Sing, barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth 
into singing and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail 
with child h . 

This, therefore, is the second sense of the words of 
the Song of Songs : the keepers or the Angels strip 
the virgin of her cloak of mortality and earthly deeds, 
that in purest simplicity of soul she may seek Christ. 
So long as she is clad in the cloak of worldly wisdom, 
she cannot find Him ; Beware, saith blessed Paul, lest 
any man make a spoil of you through philosophy 1 : when 
she is arrayed in simple purity, then she draws near 
to Christ the Word and finds Him, and then shall 
she see God ; Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
shall see God k . 



e Cant. ii. 5. 
h Isaiah liv. 1. 



f Gen. xxiv. 58. 
5 Col. ii. 8. 



R Gen. xxx. 1. 
* St. Matt. v. 8. 



o Q 



CHAP. XV. 

Iter Xortr sfjall gutoe tf)e affections of tl)t Ftrgm's soul. 

Seek Him, O virgin, yea let us all seek Him, men 
and women (the sexes of our souls are not different), 
with prayer and supplications let us call Him to us, 
that like a fair south wind 1 He may breathe upon us 
and blow upon our garden the freshening gale of the 
heavenly Word, that breaks not the fruitful trees 
therein with rude blast, but gently moves them with 
its kindly breeze. The soul is, as it were, wedded to 
the body, whose more masculine and fervid heat it 
calms and tempers ; and so it is written, my soul 
made me like the chariots of Amminadab ra . The soul 
is, while joined to the body, as a chariot drawn by 
restive horses, and it looks for an Amminadab to rule 
them. Amminadab was the father of Naasson, the 
prince of the tribe of Judah n , and is a figure of Christ 
the true prince of His people, who, as a charioteer, 
directs with the reins of His Word, the soul of the 
righteous, lest it be carried headlong by the fury of 
its steeds. These horses are the four passions of 
wrath, avarice, desire, fear ; when these are harnessed 
to the soul and begin to draw it, it is bewildered ; 
the corruptible body presseth down the soul°, commits 



1 Cant. iv. 16. m Cant. vi. 12. 

Num. i. 7. Wisdom ix. 15. 



-O 



44 ©n p?oIg STtrgtmtg, 

it, against its will, to the mercy of brute force, which 
whirls it violently in the eddy of worldly cares, till 
the fiery steeds are tamed by the power of the Word. 

The Word, like a skilful charioteer, would secure 
the soul, itself not liable to death, against the fearful 
tossing caused by its wild horses. First he will 
check the rapidity of their course and rein them in 
by the curb of reason ; then guard against the in- 
equality of their motions, lest they get entangled, and 
one by its viciousness infect, its lagging retard, or its 
restiveness throw into confusion, the rest. The fret- 
ful horse at once endangers the chariot, and harasses 
his yoke-fellow ; his fretfulness the skilful charioteer 
allays by gentleness, and He who is figured here 
diverts His steeds from the winding road of error, and 
guides them to the open plain of truth. The upward 
course is safe, but the down-hill road is perilous. 
At length, their labours ended, the soul's affections, 
obedient to the yoke of the Word, are brought to the 
manger of the Lord, where their food, no longer 
earthly, is that Bread which came down from Heaven. 
Smooth and unhampered are the wheels of this 
chariot, and free from all obstruction, and of them 
the prophet speaks when he says, The spirit of life 
was in the wheels v. 

p Ezek. i. 20. 



o o 



o 



— O 
45 



CHAP. XVI. 

J^otJcsiT) antf ccnffoence netful for t^e Utrgfrt. 

But to return to the Song of Songs : the Word of 
God is called too the garden of nuts <i, emblems of the 
study of the prophets as well as of the grace bestowed 
on Christian priests, whose sore temptations are 
figured by the almond's bitterness, their toils by the 
hardness of its shell, their fruits of inward holiness 
by its hidden kernel. A like figure was the blossom- 
ing of Aaron's rod, it was in its own nature dead, but 
bv a secret and Divine power it brought forth buds, 
bloomed blossoms and yielded almonds r . Let Him then 
come down into His garden, gather the vintage of 
faith, receive the fragrant odours, find the spiritual 
food, and feast on the sweetness of our honey ; as Him- 
self saith, / am come into My garden, My sister, My 
spouse : I have gathered My myrrh with My spice ; I 
have eaten My honey -comb with My honey*. The sweet 
compound, collected from the flowers of Christian 
holiness by the toil of those bees whose active labour 
is in agreement with the wisdom which they preach, 
is by holy Church laid up in honey- combs, to be the 
food of Christ. 

Let us seek Christ, let us call Him to us, for He is 
all in all to us. Is any soul diseased with sins of the 
body ; is any soul cramped as it were with an iron 

i Cant. vi. 11. r Num. xvii. 18. 8 Cant. v. 1. 

I O 



o a 

46 ©n ?^olg Ftrgtmtg- 

band of worldly desire ; is any yet imperfect though 
pressing forward with earnest meditation ; is any per- 
fect in manifold graces; let all come to Him, for all are 
in His power and Christ is all things to us. Art thou 
wounded and wouldst be healed, He is the physician 1 ; 
dost thou burn with fever, He is the refreshing foun- 
tain u ; art thou pressed down with iniquity, He is 
righteousness x ; needest thou help, He is the power 
of God^; fearest thou death, He is life 2 ; desirest 
thou Heaven, He is the way a ; fliest thou darkness, 
He is light b ; seekest thou food, He is the bread that 
came down from Heaven . taste, then, and see how 
gracious the Lord is : blessed is the man that trusteth 
in Him d . 

The woman that was plagued with an issue of blood 
trusted in Him and immediately was healed, for she 
came to Him in faith. Do thou, too, daughter of the 
Church, come with faith, and touch though but the 
border of His garment. The torrent of worldly 
pleasures, that overnoweth like a flood, shall be 
staunched and dried up by the heat of the Sun of 
Righteousness, the health- giving Word; only approach 
in faith like her ; take hold, with like devotion, of the 
very fringe of His heavenly words ; throw thyself 
trembling at the feet of thy Lord ; and where are His 
feet, but where His Body is ? O faith richer than all 
treasures ! O faith mightier than all bodily strength ! 

t St. Matt. ix. 12. u Zech. xiii. 1. 1 1 Cor. i. 30. 

f 1 Cor. i. 24. 7 St. John xi. 25. a St. John xiv. 6. 

b St. John i. 9. c St. John vi. 35. d Psalm xxxiv. 8. 



O 



o 



©n p?ol8 Ftegfaftg. 



47 



more health-bringing than all physicians ! She came 
near, she felt His power, she obtained her cure ; even 
as when the eye is brought to the light, it is en- 
lightened before it sees, and the operation of the light 
anticipates the vision. A disease inveterate, incurable, 
that had baffled every invention of art, that had 
drained all her resources, is cured by merely touching 
the border of a garment ! 

She was ashamed of being seen to approach Him ; 
imitate, O virgin, her shamefacedness ; she w r as confi- 
dent in her faith, take pattern by her devotion. Great, 
truly, was her grace ; she desired to conceal herself, 
yet desired not to conceal her fault, for she seemed 
to have done presumptuously. Neither do thou con- 
ceal thy faults, which He already knoweth, but con- 
fess them. Be not ashamed of doing what prophets 
have ere now done, and not been ashamed. These 
are the words of Jeremiah ; Heal me, Lord, and I 
shall be healed, words which express her meaning 
when she touched the fringe, as though she said, 
Heal me, Lord, and I shall be healed : Save me and 
I shall be saved, for Thou art my praise e ; and none is 
really healed unless Thou heal her. 

There may be some who will say to thee as was 
said to Jeremiah (for often are the faithful thus 
tempted), Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come 
now* ; yea, to the Lord Himself was said, Let Him 
now come down from the cross and we will believe Him; 



e Jer. xvii. 14. 



f Jer. xvii. 15. 



a 



o 



O -O 

-IS ©n i^olg STtrgmttg. 

He trusted in God, let Him deliver Him now, if He 
will have Him%. If any in mockery speak thus to thee, 
and try to entrap thee in vain words, see that after 
thy Master's example thou answer him not. Let 
thy converse be only with Christ ; if thou speak to 
them, they will not believe, and if thou ask them, they 
will not answer thee h ; say to the Word, As for me, I 
have not fainted in following after Thee ; Lord, Thou 
knowest 1 . Thus spake the woman with the bloody 
issue, and it was staunched. Though worn out by 
her long seeking, though full of sickness, still her 
words were, Lord, I have not fainted in following after 
Thee ; nor shall any faint, who, like her, sincerely 
follow Christ, for He calls the faint and heavy-laden 
to find rest in following Him k . Let us too follow 
Him and we shall not faint ; the promise to Jacob 
shall be ours, he shall be in rest and quiet, as well as 
the promise in Isaiah, They that wait upon the Lord 
shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with 
wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and 
they shall walk and not faint K 

Christ asked who touched Him, and the woman 
seems to say, " Lord, why askest Thou, for Thou 
knowest ; the words that pass from my lips are all 
before Thee, wherefore I am not ashamed to confess 
my sins unto Thee. Let them be confounded that 
persecute me, but let not me be confounded 1 " 1 " In 
like manner blessed Peter was not ashamed to say, 

g St. Matt, xxvii.42, 43. h St. Luke xxii. 67, 68. ' l Jer. xvii. 16. 
* Matt. xi. 28. 1 Isaiah xl. 31. m Jer. xvii. 18. 

O ■ 



o- — 9 

©n i^olg STtrgtmtg, 49 

Depart from me, for I man a sinful man, Lord 11 , for 
he knew that the Lord could read his thoughts. 
St. Peter in whom the Church and the authority of 
her discipline was to be established, felt by his deep 
wisdom and foresaw, that nothing could be more 
profitable for him than that he should not be exalted 
above measure at the great miracle with which he 
had been favoured ; therefore he says, Depart from me, 
praying, not that Christ should abandon him, but that 
He should save him from arrogance. And so, St. 
Paul also glories in the thorn in his flesh, given to him 
lest he should be exalted above measure. Arrogance 
is an alluring temptation which even St. Paul dreads, 
a danger against which even he is specially protected 
(even he, I say, for few things could make him arro- 
gant, whose danger arose from the abundance of the 
revelations) ; and his rejoicing is that of the perfect 
warrior of Christ, who gladly purchases his soul's 
health at the expense of a body wounded by a thorn 
in the flesh. 

CHAP. XVII. 

fts tf)e Utrgtn must sfmtt arrogance, so must %\z still rise 
afiobe tf)£ toorlti in holiness. 

Beware, Christian maid, of arrogance ; if thou be 
conscious that Divine grace abounds and overflows in 
thee, still measure thy virtue by the standard of per- 

» St. Luke v. 8. 



o 



50 



On i^olg Ftrgtmtg. 



fection, give thanks to God and reflect on the in- 
firmities of thy body; so, like a ship laden with 
ballast, thou shalt not be at the mercy of the wind of 
arrogance, amid the threatening waves of this world. 
The prudent bee is said to poise itself with little stones 
as a security for its light wings against the uncertain 
gusts of wind, 

And as when empty barks on billows float, 

With sandy ballast sailors trim the boat, 

So bees bear gravel stones, whose poising weight 

Steers through the whistling winds their steady flight . 

St. Paul and St. Barnabas at Lystra rent their 
clothes when the people honoured them as gods. 
Do thou, O virgin, beware also, as thou hast the bee 
for thy example, lest any flattering gale of this world 
unduly exalt the flight of thy soul's wings. For the 
soul has wings, according as it is written, who are these 
that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows P ? 
It has its spiritual flights, whereby in the twinkling of 
an eye it traverses the whole world. 

The contemplations of the wise are free and un- 
bounded, and the higher they rise heavenwards, the 
less are they clogged by earthly hindrances ; and the 
soul, cleaving to God and reflecting in itself the 
Divine image (with the passions, its fiery coursers, 
quieted and calm), is borne aloft by the motion of 
its spiritual wings into the pure ether and looks down 
upon the world. Intent on everlasting graces, it 



Virgil's Georg. iv. Dryden. p Isaiah lx. 8. 

O O 



escapes the world and rises far above it. Such a 
grace is righteousness, and righteousness is above the 
world, love is above the world, goodness is above 
the world, wisdom is above the world ; yea, though 
it be in the world, yet is it above the world. Righte- 
ousness was above the world when Satan offered all 
the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. 
He was above the world, who would touch nothing 
that it possessed, even as He said, The prince of this 
world cometh and hath nothing in Me%. Learn ye too, 
like your virgin Master, though in the world to be 
above it ; and though ye bear about with you a body, 
let your so ill within you wing its flight heavenwards. 
He that bears God in his body is above the world. 

We cannot indeed be like God and holy as He is ; 
let us imitate the Apostles, whom the world hated 
because they were not of the world. Imitate them, 
be thou a follower of them. Thou thinkest it hard 
to rise by human virtue above the world ; and it is 
even so. The holy Apostles won not this grace by 
being equal with Christ, but by following Him as 
His disciples ; be thou too, Christian virgin, Christ's 
disciple and follow Him ; then does He pray for thee 
as He prayed for them. Neither pray I, saith our 
blessed Lord, for these alone, but for them also which 
shall believe on Me through their word, that they all 
may be one r . The Lord would have us all one, that 
we may all be above the world, one in chastity, 

i St. John xiv. 30. r St. John xvii. 20. 



O ! 

one in will, one in goodness, one in grace ; for by 
these gifts the wings of the soul are exercised and 
strengthened* Let us not therefore be idle, but let 
us rise from earthly things; our wings will gather 
strength by exercise. Whatever our soul delights in, 
will aid our flight, so that if it always follow after 
God, and long to dwell in the house of the Lord and 
feed on joy in Him, and to be nourished by the miracles 
of virtue which His grace worketh, then will it cast 
out enw which finds no entrance into the angelic 
choir, then will it banish all bodily lusts which may 
not defile the temple of God ; which temple since we 
are, let us renounce all worldly cares. 



CHAP. XVIII. 



W)t four Firutts toijiri) make fjarmonu m tf)e Ftrgm's soul. 

Think not that heathen philosophy and poetry 
supply us with the images which we have referred to 
the soul, a chariot, wings and horses: they rather 
have derived their images from us, and we use our 
own resources, the language of inspired prophecy. 
Thus it is written by holy Ezekiel, The hand of the 
Lord was upon me, and I looked, and behold, a whirl- 
wind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire 
infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out 
of the midst thereof as the colour of amber out of the 
midst of the fire ; also out of the midst thereof came the 

o o 



likeness of four living creatures. Consider the descrip- 
tion of these four living creatures ; as for the likeness 
of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the 
face of a lion on the right side ; and they four had the 
face of an ox on the left side ; they four also had the 
face of an eagle s . 

Here too (we have been taught) the soul of man 
is described. The four living creatures are its 
fourfold affections, not those untrained passions 
figured by the four horses in course of discipline and 
subjugation *, but the affections of the matured and per- 
fect soul. The soul in the former state is under pro- 
bation, with Heaven before it as its reward; in the 
latter it is in Heaven with the Word of God. The 
four living creatures, which are also appropriate sym- 
bols of the books of the Holy Gospels, are here em- 
blems of the purified affections. These affections (as 
the wise among the Greeks even have defined) are 
four. 1. Wisdom or Reason exercising its natural 
authority, wherewith man was endued at his creation ; 
2. Holy Resentment at the sense of wrong, like that 
wherewith the lion resists aggression ; Christian dar- 
ing and contempt of death ; 3. Desire of what is 
good (imaged in the calf), which by due discipline 
grows into Temperance, careless of bodily pleasures, 
absorbed in the contemplation of heavenly mysteries, 
rejoicing in the bond of sacred charity ; 4. The power 
of discerning right from wrong, Justice with its eagle 
eye, which, raised on its high tribunal, tries and 

6 Ezek. i. 1—10. 1 See Ch. xv. 



54 On P?olfi ^trgtmtg. 

searches all things, unselfish, careful of others' right, 
the bond of social union. Well does the eagle figure 
justice ; soaring above earth, intent in its sublime 
elevation on the celestial mystery, it wins for its meed 
the glory of the Resurrection ; and so it is written, 
He maketh thee young and lusty as an eagle u . 

Hence it is plain that the holy Psalmist also de- 
scribes the soul as borne up by spiritual wings ; and 
not in this place only, but again he saith, Our soul is 
escaped even as a bird out of the snare of the fowler v > 
and elsewhere, In the Lord put I my trust, how say ye 
then to my soul that she should flee as a bird unto the 
hill w ? The soul, then, is not wholly earth-bound; it 
has its wings, and its wings impart to it freedom ; 
wings, however, not of material substance, but whose 
feathers are holy deeds arranged in seemly order, like 
that wing of God, under the shadow whereof shall be 
our refuge. Specially indeed those outstretched Arms 
upon the Cross are our sheltering wings, but no less 
truly every act of holiness is a refreshing shadow of 
salvation, tempering the burning of a flaming world. 

Let every Christian therefore stir up the grace of 
God ; forgetting what is behind, reaching forth unto 
those things which are before, let him press toward 
the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in 
Christ. Let him forego the honours and contentions 
of this world, otherwise the fable of Icarus may be 
verified in him, a fable indeed, but truly teaching in 

° Psalm ciii. 5. v Psalm cxxiv. 6. w Psalm xi. 1. 



55 



poetic imagery that they alone, who are ripe in wis- 
dom, can safely fly through this world's atmosphere, 
while the undisciplined youth, too adventurous and 
indulgent to his passions, loses the firm compact of 
his wings by neglect of holy deeds, and forgetful of 
the maxims of wisdom falls back to earth and perishes 
with more fearful destruction than if he had never 
known the way of truth. 

And as our flight is perilous, so in the chariot-race 
of this life, the passions, our restive coursers, threaten 
us with danger. If, however, they be duly balanced, 
the prophet shall again see in us one wheel upon the 
earth, by the living creatures* ; yea, Ezekiel shall see 
it, for he is still alive, he sees, he is mighty, and shall 
live in strength for ever ; he shall see upon the earth 
a wheel in the middle of a wheel, gliding without ob- 
stacle^. The wheel upon the earth by the living crea- 
tures is in its spiritual meaning the life of the body 
when brought into harmony with the soul, and 
fashioned in uniform obedience after the evangelic 
precepts ; the wheel in the middle of this outer wheel 
is an inner life, within the former, even as we see that 
the life of saints is not at variance with itself, the 
former part thereof agreeing with the later ; and 
again, the life which they shall live for ever in Heaven 
being even now begun and involved in their bodily 



When this harmony is brought to pass, then shall 
the echo of the Divine voice be heard, then above the 



life. 



x Ezek. i. 15. 



y Ezek. i. 16. 



o 



o -O 

firmament shall appear the likeness of a throne as the 
appearance of a sapphire stone ; and upon the likeness of 
the throne the likeness as the appearance of a Man above 
upon it z f This Man is the Word; the Word was 
made flesh* ; and He is the charioteer who subdues our 
passions; He is our Ruler, either (according to our 
several conditions and deserts), as a charioteer, as a 
teacher on the mount, or as a pilot. But He steers no 
ship in which there are not Apostles to sail, or St. 
Peter to fish ; it is no common ship which is launched 
out into the deep h ; the ship wherein Christ sits and 
teaches the people is the Church, which moves in 
safety through the world, borne onwards by the out- 
stretched sail of the Cross of Christ, filled by the 
gale of the Holy Spirit. 

In this ship St. Peter, now with hook and now with 
net, is bid to fish. O wondrous mystery ! he, the 
spiritual fisherman is bid to cast the hook of holy 
doctrine into the sea of this world, that he may take 
out thence the first martyr Stephen, bearing within 
him the tribute of Christ ; for Christ's Martyr 
is the Church's Treasure. He was the first lifted 
from the sea to Heaven, caught by Peter to be a 
minister of the Altar ; caught, not in a net, but by 
the hook, that alone in his own blood he might be 
taken up to Heaven. In his mouth was the tribute, when 
in his confession he spake of Christ ; for what other 
treasure can be in us but the Word of God ? Whoso 



1 Ezek. i. 26. a St. John i. 14. 



b St. Luke v. 4. 



o -o 

©n ?^olg Ftrgtmtg. 57 

is more perfect is God's fisherman, both with hook 
and net ; the one surrounds, the other stings ; by one 
multitudes are encircled, by the other man by man is 
chosen. Would to God that I might be allowed to 
swallow that spiritual hook, which by a rapid sting 
and slight wound would bring me to salvation ! 



CHAP. XIX. 

'Qfyz Utrgttt must m tf)e (^ommumon of St. ^ster antf t^e 
QJfyuxcf)) rtatrg to g&e up all for (£f)rist. 

Enter ye, therefore, virgins, the Apostles' nets, 
which are let down not by man's authority, but at the 
voice of God ; the net of spiritual wisdom and doc- 
trine is the Kingdom of Heaven, which, in our Lord's 
own words, is like unto a net cast into the sea c . To-day, 
on this holy festival, the day of St. Peter and St. 
Paul, ye have heard the Lord's words to Simon, 
Launch out into the deep, and let down the nets for a 
draught d . Before our Lord thus spake, St. Peter was 
fishing in the sea indeed, but in the shallows, and 
here Holy Scripture finds no depth ; where then is the 
deep ? 

First, in the heart of man ; Counsel in the heart of 
man is like deep water e , and here there are no shal- 
lows. Launch out into the deep f that is, attempt the 
heart of man with the oars of argument and faith. 

c St. Matt. xiii. 47. d St. Luke v. 4. e Prov. xx. 5. 



58 On i^olg Ftrgtmtg, 

Thus does our Blessed Lord in this place call St. Peter 
to the Church by a parable, even as in St. Matthew, 
in plain words, He saith, Follow Me, and I will make 
you fishers ofmen f . Secondly, in the Gospel; for this 
is another spiritual interpretation. The synagogue was 
in the shallows, there was no deep water in Judea ; so 
were the Samaritans, and the hidden meaning of the 
Samaritan woman's question, the well is deep, from 
whence then hast Thou that living water to give me ? 
implies that they too were unable to launch out into 
the deep, even as the Jews were, whose faith they held. 
Launch out into the deep; the deep is Christ, as is written 
of the Baptist in the Song of Zechariah, Thou, child, 
shalt be called the prophet of the Highest, and height 
and depth are the same things. Christ is the deep, in 
whom is the depth of the riches both of the wisdom 
and knowledge of God : He is depth and height ; He 
exalteth and is the Keeper of him whom He exalts. 

Where Christ is, there are the deep waters, there is 
faith that feareth the Lord ; the waters saw Thee, God, 
the waters saw Thee, and were afraid h . As for the 
Jews, with them was no deep water, for it is written, 
This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their 
" heart " is far from MeK Christ must dwell in the 
heart, as is mystically implied in His own words, 
As Jonas was three days and three nights in the whales 
belly, so must the Son of Man be three days and three 
nights in the " heart" of the earth*. 



1 St. Matt. iv. 19. g St. Luke i. 76. h Psalm lxxvii. 16. 

i St. Matt. xv. 8. k St. Matt. xii. 40. 



C ^ 

If we continue the interpretation of the Holy 
Gospel, the explanation just given will appear still 
more plainly. St. Peter answers our Lord, Master, 
we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing ; 
nevertheless, at Thy word, I will let down the net. It was 
night with Peter before he saw Christ. The day had 
not yet risen on him ; the true light had not yet shone 
on him. The Synagogue is night, the Church is 
day ; as St. Paul says, The night is far spent, the day 
is at hand. Blessed is that light which hath driven 
away the darkness of faithlessness and brought in the 
day of faith. By it Peter was made day, by it Paul 
was made day ; and lo ! on the anniversary of their 
martyrdom, their true birth- day, the voice of the Holy 
Spirit utters the words, One day telleth another 1 , that 
is, out of the treasure of their heart they preach the 
faith of Christ ; and a blessed day is each, for each 
hath shed the true light forth on us. 

Peradventure the colloquy between our Lord and 
Peter, which the Holy Gospel relates, is held in 
Heaven, even to-day m , with reference to us. Still 
daily St. Peter is the fisherman ; still daily the Lord 
saith to him, Launch out into the deep, I seem to 
myself to hear the Apostles saying, Master, we have 
toiled all the night, and have taken nothing, O how few 
assemble at the Vigils and watch by night ! St. Peter 
toils in us, when our devotion is a toil to us ; so, too, 



1 The 19th Psalm is still the first Psalm in the first Nocturn of the 
Commune Apostolorum. 
m St. Ambrose is referring to the Festival, June 29. 

O O 



o o 

does holy Paul, whose words ye have heard to-day, 
Who is weak and I am not weak ? O let not the blessed 
Apostles toil through your lack of devotion. Behold, 
they say, we have toiled all the night and have taken 
nothing. Are there any among the rich who fast in 
the sacred vigils ? If not, let them hear St. Peter's 
words, Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear, 
forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with 
corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain 
conversation, received by tradition from your fathers, 
but with the precious Blood of Christ, as of a Lamb 
without blemish and without spot n . Gold and silver 
redeemed you not, but the trial of your faith, which 
is much more precious than gold that perisheth. It 
is the study of a faithful slave to repay his master the 
price for which he was bought. Thy price, virgin, 
was not gold, it was not silver ; Christ bought thee 
not with treasure. Be ready with the price ; thou 
ever owest it, though it be not exacted of thee : He 
paid His blood for thee, thou owest Him thine ; He 
paid it for thee, repay it for thyself. We were bound 
by our sins to a cruel creditor, we had contracted 
the hand- writing of guilt, we had incurred the penalty 
of blood ; the Lord Jesus came and offered His own 
for us ; thou owest thine, yet canst not pay it. As a 
faithful slave thou art bound to repay thy Master the 
price He has paid for thee ; thou canst not do it in 
kind, yet this do, see that thou be not unworthy of 



» St. Peter i. 17—19. 

G 



o — o 

©rx p?olg STtrgtmtg- 61 

the price. Bear thyself, Christian maid, worthy of 
thy redemption, lest Christ, who hath cleansed thee, 
who hath redeemed thee, come, and finding thee in 
thy sins, say, What profit is there in My blood ? what 
good have I done thee by going down into the pit ? 
For thither, though His flesh saw no corruption, He 
descended ; He descended into hell, into the place of 
corruption, though corruption touched not Him who 
is incorruptible. 



CHAP. XX. 

earnest fcestre t^at Soft's priests, tf)£ successors of St. 
^eter, maw gather manp Utrcjtns into uje ©Jmrelj's fofr. 

Let us return to the words of our Blessed Lord, 
and pray ye for God's Priest, that to him too may 
be said, Launch out into the deep and let down your nets 
for a draught. Who can be Gods fisherman, amid 
the storms and tempests of the world, without God's 
help ? When He so wills, He gives the word, the nets 
are let down and a multitude is taken, so great that 
another ship too is filled; yea, many Churches are 
filled with the pure people of God. And when the 
faithful multiply, God sends more labourers, as St. 
Peter beckoned to his partners, that were in the other 
ship, that they should come and help them; and when 
Thou multipliest Thy labourers, O Lord, do Thou in- 

Psalm xxx. 9. 



o o 

62 ©n ?&olg Ftrgmttg. 

crease their draught of fishes ! Their nets are not their 
own, they are the Apostles'. May bands of holy 
virgins be gathered in their folds, the folds of apostolic 
instructions! May holy Peter quicken you, O virgins; 
he interceded for a widow, far more will he for a 
virgin ; moved by the widows' tears he raised to life 
Dorcas who sustained them. May holy Paul quicken 
you, who bids honour to be paid to you ; it is good, 
he saith, to abide even as I. He would win vou bv 
the honour, he teaches by his authority, he invites 
you by his example. May he quicken you, who left 
all and followed Christ! so did blessed Peter, so did 
St. John. 

How highly advanced was that poor fisherman ! 
he was seeking a livelihood on the sea and he found 
the Life of all; he quitted his boat and found God; 
he left his thole and found the Word ; he loosened his 
lines and bound fast his faith ; he folded up his nets 
and he caught men ; he despised the sea and earned 
Heaven. While he is tossed on the troubled sea, he 
founded on a rock men's wavering minds, which till 
then could find no rest. Let us dwell on his humble 
craft, that we may the more admire his virtue ; was 
he an ignoble servant of men, his office as Evangelist 
was more exalted ; was he pinched by poverty, he 
was the richer in virtue ; was he lowly among men, 
he was highly esteemed in faith. Is a fisher's good 
faith mistrusted, he is the more believed, for he spoke 
not his own words but God's. Was his earthly con- 
dition debased, his lack of this worlds wisdom was 
_ o 



o 



o 



©n ?0ol2 Fir shuts. 



63 



more than compensated by his spiritual wisdom. He 
who has not the law, but does by nature the things 
contained in the law, is himself a law to himself ; he 
who was unlearned in the law and yet spake above 
it as Peter did, received his words from Him by whom 
the law itself was given. 

O great and quickly- earned dignity ! The poor 
fishermen bear comparison with Moses the giver, 
and Elias the executor, of the law. The virtues of 
Moses and St. Peter were different, but the grace of 
God was great in both ; to one the knowledge of 
creation was revealed ; the other was great in his 
ignorance of the world. Moses by spiritual wisdom 
rose above all earthly things and the height of this 
world's wisdom, even to Heaven : and the soul of this 
poor fisher, undarkened by clouds, and unlimited by 
time, enters the mysteries of the Divine nature ; soar- 
ing beyond created matter he saw the Word with God 
and saw that the Word was God : the veil of flesh 
weakened not his faith, he acknowledged the Son of 
God in the form of man, by which mystery the 
humanity assumed is admitted to the prerogatives of 
the Godhead, which assumed it. Moses, indeed, in 
saying, And God said — and God made, in the history 
of the creation, implied the utterance of the Father, 
and the operation of the Son, but the meaning was 
sealed and he alone knew it, and therefore after the 
Law was given the people went astray ; but now by 
the Gospel, the truth is at length revealed and the 
Church believes. 



o ; o 

64 ©n ?&oto Utrguutg. 

[May those who now as blessed Peter did, labour 
as God's fishermen, let down at the Divine Word 
their nets for a draught, and may the net of holy 
Church be filled with devout and earnest souls ; and 
again may not a few be found, ardent aspirants after 
Christian perfection, resolved, in the renunciation of 
all that may wean them from their heavenly Spouse, 
to consecrate themselves to His undivided service in 
Holy Virginity.] 



Glott) fcc to Got*. 




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